BX  9178  .T3  1890 
Talmage,  T.  De  Witt  1832- 

1902. 
Trumpet  peals 


c 


/^oo-^^  A^z^a.  /Z>A^- 

I'l-oMi  a  l'lii>t(>i;rai)li  liy  Dm  yea 


Trumpet  Peals. 


H  Collection  of  ITimcl^  an^  lEloqucut  lEytracts 


FROM   THE  SERMONS   OF  THE 


REV.  T.   DE   WITT   TALMAGE,  D.D. 


Including  Demosthenean  Philippics  Against  Ingersollian  Infidelity, 

Darwinian  Evolution,  Gambling,  Stock-Gambling,  Theatricals, 

Corrupt  Literature  and  other  Evils  and  Perils,  with 

Special  Appeals  to  Young  Men  and  Gospel  Peals 

FOR  All. 


COLLATED  AND   CLASSIFIED 

BY    THE 

REV.  L.  C.  LOCKWOOD. 

(with  the  consent  of  dr.  talm^cbu^ 


^^W  Of  PRlWog;^ 


NEW   YORK : 

BROMFIELD   &   COMPANY, 

658  Broadway. 
1S90. 


Copyright,  1890, 

HV 
BKOMIIliLU   &    COMI'ANY. 


DRUHMONI)  &  Nku, 

Electrotupers, 

1  to  7  IIuKUf  Street, 

New  Vork. 


CONTENTS. 


Preface 


CHAPTER  I. 
The  Great  First  Cause i_io 

God  in  Creation,  i ;  Wiio  made  the  Stars,  2 ;  A  God,  a  God,  2 ; 
Tlie  Pleiades  and  Orion,  3 ;  The  Peasant  Astronomer,  3  ;  Two 
rosettes  of  stars,  4;  What  the  stars  teach,  5  ;  The  God  of  light,  6  ; 
The  immutable,  6;  Chain  of  events,  7;  Trusting  God  8. 

CHAPTER   n. 

Evolution:  Anti-God,   Anti-Bible,  Anti-Science,  Anti-Com- 
mon-sense, 11-34 

The  Creed  of  Evolutionists,  11;  Evolution  is  infidelity,  12;  An 
inconsistent  theory,  14;  The  origin  of  worlds,  14;  Jumping  over- 
board, 16;  One  of  the  tenets,  17;  No  natural  progress,  18;  Evolu- 
tion downward,  19;  Bible  evolution,  19;  Modern  evolutionists,  20; 
Sons  of  a  gorilla  or  sons  of  God,  21  ;  The  missing  link,  22 ;  Evolu- 
tion of  a  bird's  wing,  23  ;  The  rattlesnake,  23  ;  Evolution  a  guess, 
24;  The  inward  testimony,  24;  A  strange  genealogy,  25;  The  jury 
disagree,  26;  Species  to  remain  distinct,  27;  Evolution  brutalizing, 
29;  Destiny  above  origin,  30;  Evolution  no  novelty,  31  ;  Evolu- 
tion for  a  wreck,  33. 

CHAPTER    HI. 
Ingersollian  Infidelity  Confuted 35-i35 

Big  business  on  small  capital,  35  ;  No  absurdity  in  woman's  crea- 
tion, 36;  Making  mouths,  37;  Footprints  of  Deity,  37;  Blasphem- 
ous programme,  38;  Robert  Ingersoll's  testimony,  39;  Mr.  Inger- 
soll's  charges,  41  ;  Is  this  book  true,  41  ;  Creation  of  light,  42  ;  The 
firmament,  43;  The  Bible  unscientific,  45  ;  The  Deluge,  46;  The 
size  of  the  Ark,  47  ;  Landing  of  the  Ark,  49;  The  Jews  in  Egypt, 
51  ;  The  anointing  oil,  51  ;  The  sun  and  moon  stood  still,  52  ;  Jonah 
and  the  whale,  54 ,    Incredulity  rebutted,  55  ;  Graven    images,  56 ; 

iii 


iV  CONTENTS. 

The  Bible  a  cruel  book,  58;  A  mass  of  contradictions,  58;  Imposi- 
tion on  credulity,  60;  Full  of  indecencies,  63;  Polygamy,  65; 
Women's  shame  and  humiliation,  68 ;  Counter  charges  against 
Ingersollism,  71  ;  The  modern  Jehoiakim,  72;  Infidelity  and  sui- 
cide, 73;  The  rogues' picture-gallery,  74;  The  meanness  of  infi- 
delity, 79;  No  substitute  for  Christian  institutions,  83  ;  Impeach- 
ment of  Infidelity,  84;  Downfall  of  Christianity,  86;  A  punishable 
crime,  88;  Degradation  of  womanhood,  89;  Demoralization  of 
society,  90;  Christianity  not  dead,  94;  Victory  for  God,  97;  Inger- 
soll  defeated,  100  ;  What  has  been  accomplished,  103  ;  The  greatest 
work  of  the  age,  104;  A  great  change,  109;  A  balm  for  the  weary, 
112;  Beyond  the  grave,  112;  Rousseau's  dream,  114;  The  Bible 
the  book  of  books,  115;  The  stolen  grindstones,  123  ;  Appeal  to 
Christians.  124;  Logic  of  testimony,  126;  Appeal  to  young  men, 
128;  Cavilling  rebuked,  131. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

The  Higher  Criticism 136-156 

No  mending  of  th».  bible,  136;  Why  expurgation  is  wrong,  138; 
Expurgation  of  the  heart,  139;  No  compromise,  140;  Better  illus- 
tration than  Dore's,  141  ;  Theological  fog,  143 ;  A  whole  bible 
from  lid  to  lid,  145  ;  Lost  literary  treasures,  147  ;  When  we  can  do 
without  the  bible,  149;  No  additions  made,  150;  Good  people 
satisfied,  151  ;  Achievements  of  orthodoxy,  151  ;  The  sure  founda- 
tion, 152;  The  certitudes,  153;  Contrasted  deathbeds,  154;  Stand 
by  the  old  paths,  155. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Theory  of  a  Posthumous  Opportunity,       ,       .        .     157-169 

Pain  does  not  cure,  158;  An  unpropitious  beginning.  158;  Time 
no  reformer,  159;  Unpropitious  surroundings,  159;  A  lazaretto 
world,  160;  A  demoralizing  theory,  161  ;  An  infidel's  premonition, 
162;  Sufficient  chances  in  life,  162;  The  gospel  ship,  163;  Alex- 
ander's light,  164;  A  dream,  165;  Eternal  punishment,  165;  How 
far  it  is  to  hell,  166;  A  very  stout  rope,  168. 

CHAPTER   VI. 
The  Plague  of  Profanity 170-177 

Is  it  manly,  171  ;  Blasphemy  abroad,  173 ;  What  is  the  cure,  174; 
Instances  of  awful  punishment,  176. 


CONTENTS.  V 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Lying,  Dishonesty,  and  Fraud, 178-207 

Agricultural  falsehoods,  179;  Commercial  lies,  180;  Both  sides 
the  counter,  181  ;  Mechanical  lies,  181  ;  Social  lies,  182;  Shopping 
lies,  183;  Fraud  and  dishonesty,  184;  Monopolies,  186;  Stolen 
goods  returned,  187;  Fascinations  of  fraud,  187;  The  Duke  of 
Wellington,  188;  Trust  funds,  189;  Debt,  190;  Swindling,  193; 
Under  the  pressure,  195  ;  Their  name  is  legion,  196  ;  Lotteries,  198  ; 
Gift  stores,  201;  Snares,  202;  Betting,  202;  Other  swindling 
schemes,  203;  The  tulip  mania,  204;  Mississippi  schemes,  204; 
South  sea  bubble,  205;  Morus  multicaulis,  206;  Oil  fever,  206; 
Warning  to  young  men,  207. 

CHAPTER  VIIL 

Gambling, 208-238 

What  is  gambling,  209;  Killing  to  industry,  211;  Killing  to 
character,  211;  Shall  gamblers  triumph,  212;  A  Sennacheribean 
evil,  213;  A  merciless  evil,  214;  Deeds  of  darkness,  214;  Fas- 
cinations of  the  game.  216;  Covetousness,  218;  Ecclesiastical 
gambling,  220;  Parlor  card-playing,  220;  Terrible  tale,  221 ;  Peril- 
ous to  business.  221  ;  Trap  and  trickery,  221  ;  Foul  play,  222  ; 
An  estate  in  a  dice-box,  222;  An  infernal  spell,  222;  A  gambler's 
deathbed,  223;  An  enemy  to  the  home,  223;  Another  victim,  224; 
Choice  of  road,  225  ;  Tenpins,  226;  Rapid  transit  to  perdition,  226; 
The  career  of  the  gambler,  227  ;  Affectionate  appeal,  228 ;  Stock 
gambling,  229;  Wall  Street,  229;  Doings  in  Wall  Street,  232;  in- 
flation and  collapse,  233;  Fascination  of  stock-gambling,  234; 
Fast  in  the  stocks,  235;  Religion  in  business,  236;  Stock-gam- 
bling a  laughing-stock,  237, 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Amusements, 239-253 

Dancing  universally  popular,  241 ;  Dancing  in  ancient  times,  241  ; 
A  brilliant  victim,  243;  The  theatre  and  stage  costumes,  244;  Be- 
ware of  contamination,  245  ;  The  drama  of  life,  246  ;  Tests  of  amuse- 
ments, 248;  Amusement  versus  home,  251. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Social  Impurity, ^i^^-z^o 

A  crusade  needed,  255 ;  Libertinism.  255;  Freelovism,  257 ;  Ex- 
plosions of  social  life,  257;  Alley  scene,  258;  God  bless  the  White 
Cross,  259. 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Intemperance 261-305 

The  arch-fiend  of  the  nations,  262  ;  The  carousal,  263  ;  A  warning 
voice  from  the  aslics  of  Babylon,  266;  The  drunkard's  will,  268; 
Drug  stores,  26S;  Take  sides,  269;  To  the  rescue.  272;  A  grand 
crusade,  273;  The  evil  of  drunkenness,  274;  The  dramshop,  275  ; 
A  Coney  Island  tragedy,  276  ;  Beats  the  Bard  of  Avon,  277  ;  A 
tragedy  in  five  acts,  277  ;  A  wreck,  278  ;  No  stopping,  279;  An  im- 
portant discovery,  280;  A  dreadful  crop,  280;  The  history  of  a 
friend,  281  ;  Other  victims,  283;  An  emblem  from  Egypt,  284;  Loss 
of  good  name,  286  ;  Loss  of  self-respect,  287  ;  Loss  of  usefulness,  290  ; 
Loss  of  physical  health,  290;  Loss  of  home,  291 ;  Loss  of  the  soul, 
292  ;  Are  you  astray,  beware,  293  ;  Wine-drinking  convivial  ilies,  294 ; 
Holiday  temptations,  295  ;  The  pawnbroker's  spoils,  295  ;  Noble 
altruism,  296  ;  The  brand  on  the  barrel.  296;  Temptations  of  young 
writers  for  the  press,  297  ;  Loves  a  "  shining  mark,"  297  ;  Student 
victim,  298;  The  contrast,  299;  Reckless  infatuation,  300;  The 
plunge,  300;  Broken  hearts,  301  ;  Stop  in  time,  302;  Young  men 
of  America,  302  ;  A  peroration,  302  ;  Your  only  hope,  303  ;  Another 
case  to  the  point,  304. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Corrupt  Literature, 306-330 

Multiplication  of  books,  306;  A  worse  than  frog-plague,  307 ; 
Salacious  literature,  309;  How  are  the  frogs  to  be  slain,  312; 
Healthful  literature,  314;  Good  and  bad  results,  317;  What  books 
and  newspapers  shall  we  read,  318  ;  Fictitious  literature,  318  ;  Books 
that  corrupt  the  imagination,  322 ;  Books  w-hich  are  apologetic  for 
crime,  323;  Insanity  induced,  324;  Apologies,  325;  Infidel  books, 
325;  Pernicious  pictorials,  327;  Examine  your  libraries,  328; 
Ephcsian  magic  books,  329 ;  A  day  of  reckoning,  329 ;  A  terrible 
fate,  330. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Traps  FOR  Young  Men 331-365 

City  snares,  332  ;  Young  men  from  tlie  country,  334;  Behavior 
makes  the  abode,  335;  No  half-way,  336 ;  An  indolent  life.  337; 
How  swift  the  river,  339;  Diversity  of  temptations,  341  ;  Commer- 
cial Pharisees,  342  ;  Hissed  oil  the  stage.  346  ;  Every  man  has  a  part, 
346;  A  consecrated  home.  347  ;  An  exit.  348;  Siiakcspcare's  will, 
350;  Winter  temptations.  350;  The  (Unil's  liarvcst  lime,  351  ;   Fatal 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

parties,  351  ;  Slain  by  evil  habits,  352  ;  Trr,  try  again,  353;  Moral 
gravitation,  354;  Evil  habits  hard  to  give  up,  354;  Easy  to  go  down 
stream,  355  ;  Four  plain  questions,  357  ;  Irreligion  a  slaughterer, 
359:  Mercy  for  all,  361  ;  The  worst  may  hope,  362;  Glorious  news, 
363. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Defences  of  Young  Men, 366-376 

A  good  home,  366 ;  Industrious  habits,  367  ;  Drudgery  necessary 
369;  Respect  for  the  Sabbath,  370;  A  noble  ideal,  371 ;  Religious 
principle,  374, 

CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Termini  of  Two  City  Roads 377-386 

The  country  home,  377;  Landed  in  the  city,  378  ;  Money  is  all  gone, 
380;  The  contrast,  381 ;  The  tremendous  secret,  385  ;  A  parting  at  a 
theatre,  386. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Gospel  Trumpet  Peals,        .......    387-421 

Warning  and  invitation,  3S7  ;  Time  and  eternity,  388  ;  Time  our 
only  opportunity,  389;  Solemn  thought,  389;  Eternity  for  time, 
390  ;  Soon  to  leave  all,  391 ;  A  fickle  world,  392  ;  Making  a  god  of  the 
world,  393  ;  A  great  cheat,  393  ;  World-hunting,  394;  Fascination  of 
killing,  394 ;  A  morning  hunt,  395 ;  Hunting  the  dollar — the  money 
god,  396;  Return  from  the  chase,  397  ;  Is  it  well  with  thy  soul,  398; 
The  two  scales,  399;  The  property  sold,  400;  Business  closed,  401 , 
A  bad  bargain,  402  ;  Famous  vendors,  403 ;  A  suit  for  replevin,  404 ; 
The  accusing  blood,  405  ;  The  cost  of  recovery,  405  ;  Saving  power, 
406;  All  of  grace,  407;  Soul-hunting,  409;  Gospel  weapon,  411; 
Where  to  hunt,  411;  Skill  in  hunting,  413;  Soul-saving,  415; 
Rescue  the  perishing,  416;  Gospel  ship,  419;  I  came  in  on  a  plank, 
420. 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

Three  Trumpet  Peals 422-434 

Peal  first,  422  ;  A  despairing  octogenarian,  425  ;  Peal  second,  426  ; 
Peal  third,  427  ;  A  spectator  at  Gettysburg,  428  ;  Crisis  in  disease, 
428;  Lost  chance,  429 ;  Postponement  useless,  430  ;  Now  or  never, 
430  ;  The  accepted  time,  433. 


VI 11  cox  TENTS. 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 
The  Story  of  Naaman 435-442 

CHAPTER   XIX. 
The  Well  AT  THE  Gate 443-448 

CHAPTER   XX. 

Character  Building, 449-454 

Plumb-line  religion,  449;  Plumb-line  rectitude,  450;  Plumb-line 
traffic,  451 ;  Leaning  tower  of  Pisa,  452. 

CHAPTER   XXI. 

Heaven, 455 

The  way  to  heaven,  455  ;  The  King's  highway,  456  ;  A  clean  road, 
457;  A  plain  nxid,  457;  A  safe  road,  458;  A  pleasant  road,  458; 
Visions  of  heaven,  458;  LcMiging  for  home,  460;  A  dream,  461; 
Reunion:  a  shipwrecked  father  and  son,  462;  Glories  of  heaven, 
463;  Heavenly  hosts,  465;  Heavenly  awards,  466;  The  healtl.  of 
heaven,  468;  Heaven  rights  all  wrongs,  468;  No  sorrow  there,  469; 
The  bible  the  only  true  guide  book,  ^70;  Historic  wonders,  470; 
Higher  mathematics,  471  ;  Law  studies  471  ;  Astronomy,  471  ;  The 
Sciences,  472  ;  Explorations,  472  :  Theology,  473  ;  Society,  473  ;  Oc- 
cupation, 474;  New  Jerusalem  Church,  474;  Music,  475;  Sweet 
Sabbath  Song,  476. 

CHAPTER   XXII. 
Uk.  Talmage  in  Palestine, 477 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Frontispiece,         ....  Portrait  of  Rev.  Dr.  Talmage. 

Facing  Page  i,     .         .        .        .      The  New  Brooklyn  Tabernacle. 


PREFACE. 


Dr.  Talmage  needs  no  introduction,  and  his  Trumpet 
Peals  speak  for  themselves.  The  Editor  is  not  a  Voice  in  the 
Wilderness,  proclaiming  a  coming  man,  but  he  can  point  to 
one  who  has  already  come,  and  made  the  world  brighter  and 
better  for  his  coming.  The  collation  of  some  of  his  thought- 
gems  has  been  a  labor  of  love  that  has  had  its  own  reward. 
But  the  treasure-trove  is  too  good  to  keep,  and  he  feels  like 
relieving  himself  of  some  of  the  embarrassment  of  riches  by- 
making  others  as  rich  as  himself.  And  let  each  recipient 
sound  aloud  the  Trumpet  Peals,  till  their  echoes  reverberate 
from  the  Gate  of  Commerce  to  the  Golden  Gate. 

If  Dr.  Talmage  is  a  son  of  thunder,  the  thunderbolts  are 
followed  by  a  cloud-burst  of  refreshing  showers  of  blessing. 
If  he  is  trumpet-tongued,  the  trumpet  has  no  uncertain 
sound,  but  calls  men  to  battle  for  the  right.  If  he  wields  a 
Damascus  blade,  sharper  than  a  two-edged  sword,  it  is  to 
cut  asunder  the  bands  of  wickedness.  If  he  is  a  second 
Demosthenes,  he  utters  no  second-hand  Philippics,  but  bids 
us  march  against  modern  vices  and  conquer  or  die.  If  he 
has  already  won  great  victories,  these  but  nerve  him  to  win 
greater.  If  two  tabernacles  burn  down,  he  shouts,  "  None 
of  these  things  move  me,"  and  spurs  on  a  willing  people  to 
build  one  greater  than  before,  after  the  pattern  of  the  splen- 
did engraving  with  which  this  work  is  embellished. 

Nor  is  Dr.  Talmage  simply  a  Reformer,  for  he  wins  some 
of  his  most  signal  triumphs  on  the  Gospel  field.  And  with 
the  old  Constantinean  battle-cry,  "  In  Hoc  Signo  Vinces  " — 
"  By  this  Sign  Conquer,"  and  the  motto,  "  Via  Cracis,  via 


X  PREFACE. 

Lucis" — "The  Way  of  the  Cross  is  a  Way  of  Light,"  he 
marshals  his  host  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  and  by  the  way 
of  Gethscmane  leads  them  up  to  the  glory-height  of  Olivet, 
ami  then  up  "  heaven's  infinite  steepness "  to  the  glory- 
height  above,  and  within  the  pearly  gate  lays  his  trophies 
down  at  Jesus'  feet.  Then  sound  the  Trumpet  Peals  and 
swell  "the  consecrated  host  of  God's  elect,"  multiplying  the 
Talmagean  trophies  by  the  million,  and  bringing  many  sons 
and  daughters  unto  glory,  to  shout  the  loud  hallelujahs,  and 
on  the  Sea  of  Glass  to  sing  the  Song  of  Moses  and  the 
Lamb ! 

L.  C.  LOCKWOOD. 
WOODHAVEN,  L.  I.,  January,  1890. 


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l'li.>t..i;ia|.li<-.|  li.iiii   Aicliitccts"  Drawing.  l>y  Oiirvca. 


TRUMPET   PEALS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
The  Great  First  Cause. 

"  In  the  beginning  God."  A  beginning  must  have  a  Beginner, 
and  that  Beginner  is  God.  An  effect  must  have  a  cause,  and  the 
Great  First  Cause  is  God. — Editor. 

GOD   IN   CREATION. 

The  poet  of  Uz  calls  us  to  the  laying  of  the  foundation 
of  the  great  temple  of  a  world.  The  corner-stone  was  a 
block  of  light,  and  the  trowel  was  of  celestial  crystal.  All 
about  and  on  the  embankments  of  cloud  stood  the  angelic 
choristers  unrolling  their  librettos  of  overture,  and  other 
worlds  clapped  shining  cymbals  while  the  ceremony  went 
on,  and  God,  the  architect,  by  stroke  of  light  after  stroke  of 
light,  dedicated  this  great  cathedral  of  a  world,  with  moun- 
tains for  pillars,  and  sky  for  frescoed  ceiling,  and  flowering 
fields  for  floor,  and  sunrise  and  midnight  aurora  for  uphol- 
stery. "  Who  laid  the  corner-stone  thereof,  when  the  morn- 
ing stars  sang  together?" 

The  whole  universe  was  a  complete  cadence,  an  unbroken 
dithyramb,  a  musical  portfolio.  The  great  sheet  of  immen- 
sity had  been  spread  out,  and  written  on  it  were  the  stars, 
the  smaller  of  them  minims,  the  larger  of  them  sustained 
notes.  The  meteors  marked  the  staccato  passages,  the 
whole  heavens  a  gamut  with  all  sounds,  intonations  and 
modulations,  the  space  between  the  worlds  a  musical  inter- 


2  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

val,  trembling  of  stellar  light  a  quaver,  the  thunder  a  base 
clef,  the  wind  among  the  trees  a  treble  clef.  Such  the  first 
"music  of  the  spheres." 

WHO   MADE  THE  STARS? 

Napoleon  was  on  a  ship's  deck  bound  for  Egypt.  It  was 
a  bright  starry  night,  and  as  he  paced  the  deck,  thinking  of 
the  great  afTairs  of  the  State  and  of  battle,  he  heard  two 
men  on  the  deck  in  conversation  about  God  ;  one  saying 
there  was  a  God,  and  the  other  saying  there  was  no  God. 
Napoleon  stopped  and  looked  up  at  the  starry  heavens  and 
then  turned  to  these  men  and  said, "  Gentlemen,  I  heard  one 
of  you  say  there  is  no  God  ;  if  there  is  no  God,  will  you 
please  to  tell  me  who  made  all  those  stars  ?" 

A   GOD  !      A  GOD  ! 

Galileo  in  prison  for  his  advanced  notions  of  things  was 
asked  why  he  persisted  in  believing  in  God,  and  he  pointed 
down  to  a  broken  straw  on  the  floor  of  his  dungeon,  and 
said  :  "  Sirs,  if  I  had  no  other  reason  to  believe  the  wisdom 
and  the  goodness  of  God,  I  would  argue  them  from  that 
straw  on  the  floor  of  this  dungeon."  Behold  the  wisdom  of 
God  in  the  construction  of  the  seeds  from  which  all  the 
growths  of  spring-time  come  forth — seeds  so  wonderfully 
constructed  that  they  keep  their  vitality  for  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  years.  Grains  of  corn  found  in  the  cerements 
of  the  Egyptian  mummies  buried  thousands  of  years  ago, 
planted  now,  come  up  as  luxuriantly  and  easily  as  grains  of 
corn  that  grew  last  year  planted  this  spring-time. 

After  the  fire  in  London  in  1666,  the  Sisimbrium  Iris, 
seeds  of  which  must  have  been  planted  hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds of  years  before  that,  grew  all  over  the  ruins  of  the  fire. 
Could  the  universities  of  the  earth  explain  the  mysteries  of 
one  rutabaga  seed  ?  Could  they  girdle  the  mysteries  of  one 
grain  of  corn?  Oh,  the  shining  firmament  in  one  drop  of 
dew  !  Oh,  the  untravellcd  continents  of  mystery  in  a  crystal 
of  snow !     Oh,  the  gorgeous  upholstery  in  one  tuft  of  moun- 


THE   GREAT  FIRST  CAUSE.  3 

tain  moss  !     Oh,  the  triumphal  arch  in  one  tree-branch  !    All 
nature  cries,  "A  God  !" 

Where  is  the  loom  in  which  He  wove  the  curtains  of  the 
morning  ?  Where  is  tJie  vat  of  beauty  out  of  which  He  dipped 
the  crimson  and  the  gold  and  the  saffron  and  the  blue  and 
the  green  and  the  red?  Where  are  the  moulds  in  which- He 
ran  out  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees  ?  Where  is  the  harp  that 
gave  the  warble  to  the  lark,  and  the  sweet  call  to  the  robin, 
and  the  carol  to  the  canary,  and  the  chirp  to  the  grass- 
hopper ?     Oh,  the  God  in  an  atom  ! 

THE   PLEIADES   AND   ORION. 

"  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  show- 
eth  His  handiwork."     They  mirror  their  Maker. — Editor. 

"  Seek  Him  that  maketh  the  Seven  Stars  and  Orion." — Amos  5  :  8. 

A  country  farmer  wrote  these  words :  Amos  of  Tekoa. 
He  ploughed  the  earth  and  threshed  the  grain  with  a  new 
threshing-machine,  as  formerly  the  cattle  trod  out  the  grain. 
He  gathered  the  fruit  of  the  sycamore  tree,  and  scarified  it 
with  an  iron  comb  just  before  it  was  getting  ripe,  as  it  was 
necessary  and  customary  in  that  way  to  take  from  it  the  bit- 
terness. He  was  the  son  of  a  poor  shepherd  ;  but  before 
the  rustic  the  Philistines,  and  Syrians,  and  Phoenicians,  and 
Moabites,  and  Ammonites,  and  Edomites,  and  Israelites 
trembled. 

THE   PEASANT   ASTRONOMER. 

Moses  was  a  law-giver,  Daniel  was  a  prince,  Isaiah  a 
courtier,  and  David  a  king ;  but  Amos  was  a  peasant  ;  and, 
as  might  be  supposed,  nearly  all  his  parallelisms  are  pastoral, 
his  prophecy  full  of  the  odor  of  new-mown  hay,  the  rattle  of 
locusts,  the  rumble  of  carts  with  sheaves,  and  the  roar  of 
wild  beasts  devouring  the  flock,  while  the  shepherd  came 
out  in  their  defence.  He  watched  the  herds  by  day,  and  by 
night  inhabited  a  booth  made  out  of  bushes,  so  that  through 
these  branches  he  could  see  the  stars  all  night  long,  and  was 
more  familiar  with  them   than  we  who  have  tight  roofs  to 


4  TKUMPKT  PEALS. 

our  houses  and  hardly  ever  sec  the  stars  except  among  the 
tall  brick  chimneys  of  the  great  towns.  But  at  seasons  of 
the  year  when  the  herds  were  in  special  danger  he  would 
stay  out  in  the  open  field  all  through  the  darkness,  his  only 
shelter  the  curtain  of  the  night,  heaven,  with  the  stellar  em- 
broideries and  silvered  tassels  of  lunar  light. 

What  a  life  of  solitude,  all  alone  with  his  herds!  Poor 
Amos!  and  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  hark  to  the  wolf's 
bark,  and  the  lion's  roar,  and  the  bear's  growl,  and  the  owl's 
tc-whit-te-whos,  and  the  serpent's  hiss  as  he  unwittingly  steps 
too  near  while  moving  through  the  thickets  !  So  Amos,  like 
other  herdsmen,  got  the  habit  of  studying  the  map  of  the 
heavens,  because  it  was  so  much  of  the  time  spread  out  be- 
fore him.  He  noticed  some  stars  advancing,  and  others 
receding.  He  associated  their  dawn  and  setting  with  certain 
seasons  of  the  year.  He  had  a  poetic  nature,  and  he  read 
night  by  night,  and  month  by  month,  and  year  by  year  tJie 
poem  of  the  constellations,  divinely  rhythmic. 

TWO    ROSETTES   OF   STARS 

especially  attracted  his  attention  while  seated  on  the  ground 
or  lying  on  his  back  under  the  open  scroll  of  the  midnight 
heavens — the  Pleiades,  or  Seven  Stars,  and  Orion.  The 
former  group  this  rustic  prophet  associated  with  the  spring, 
as  it  rises  about  the  first  of  May.  The  latter  he  associated 
with  the  winter,  as  it  comes  to  the  meridian  in  January. 
The  Pleiades,  or  Seven  Stars,  connected  with  all  sweetness 
and  joy  ;  Orion  the  herald  of  the  tempest.  No  wonder  that 
Amos,  having  heard  these  two  anthems  of  the  stars,  put 
down  the  stout  rough  staff  of  the  herdsman,  and  took  into 
his  brown  hand  and  cut  and  knotted  fingers  the  pen  of  a 
prophet,  and  advised  the  recreant  people  of  his  time  to  re- 
turn to  God,  saying  :  "Seek  Him  that  makcth  the  Seven 
Stars  and  Orion."  This  commaiul,  which  Amos  gave  785 
years  B.C.,  is  just  as  appropriate  for  us. 


THE   GREAT  FIRST  CAUSE. 


WHAT  THE   STARS   TEACH. 


In  the  first  place,  Amos  saw,  as  we  must  see,  that  the 
God  who  made  the  Pleiades  and  Orion  must  be  the  God  of 
order.  It  was  not  so  much  a  star  here  and  a  star  there  that 
impressed  the  inspired  herdsman,  but  seven  in  one  group, 
and  seven  in  the  other  group.  He  saw  that  night  after  night, 
season  after  season,  and  decade  after  decade,  they  had  kept 
step  of  light,  each  one  in  its  own  place,  a  sisterhood  never 
clashing  and  never  contesting  precedence.  From  the  time 
Hesiod  called  the  Pleiades  the  "  Seven  Daughters  of  Atlas" 
and  Virgil  wrote  in  his  ^Eneid  of  ''  Stormy  Orion"  until  now 
they  have  observed  the  order  established  for  their  coming 
and  going  ;  order  written  not  in  manuscript  that  may  be 
pigeon-holed,  but  with  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  on  the 
dome  of  the  sky,  so  that  all  nations  may  read  it.  Order. 
Persistent  order.     Sublime  order.     Omnipotent  order. 

What  a  sedative  to  you  and  me,  to  whom  communities 
and  nations  sometimes  seem  going  pell-mell,  and  the  world 
ruled  by  some  fiend  at  hap-hazard,  and  in  all  directions  mal- 
administration !  The  God  who  keeps  seven  worlds  in  right 
circuit  for  six  thousand  years  can  certainly  keep  all  the 
affairs  of  individuals,  nations,  and  continents  in  adjustment. 
We  better  not  fret,  for  the  peasant's  argument  was  right. 
If  God  can  take  care  of  the  seven  worlds  of  the  Pleiades,  and 
the  four  chief  worlds  of  Orion,  He  can  probably  take  care 
of  the  one  world  we  inhabit.  Think  for  your  consolation 
that,  as  a  part  of  His  care,  there  are  two  hundred  stars  in  the 
Pleiades,  and  that  in  what  is  called  the  sword  of  Orion  there 
is  a  nebula  computed  to  be  two  trillion  two  hundred  thou- 
sand billions  of  times  larger  than  the  sun,  the  wheel  of  the 
constellations  turning  in  the  wheel  of  galaxies  for  thousands 
of  years  without  the  breaking  of  a  cog,  or  the  slipping  of  a 
band,  or  the  snap  of  an  axle ;  and  for  your  placidity  and 
comfort  I  charge  you,  "  Seek  Him  that  maketh  the  Seven 
Stars  and  Orion." 


TRUMPET  PEALS. 


THE   GOD   OF   LIGHT. 


Again,  Amos  saw,  as  we  must  see,  that  the  God  who 
made  these  two  groups  of  stars  was  the  God  of  hght.  Not 
satisfied  with  making  one  star  or  two  or  three  stars,  He 
makes  seven ;  and  having  finished  that  group  of  worlds, 
makes  another  group,  group  after  group.  To  the  Pleiades 
He  adds  Orion.  It  seems  that  God  likes  light  so  well  that 
He  keeps  making  it.  Only  one  being  in  the  universe  knows 
the  statistics  of  solar,  lunar,  stellar,  and  meteoric  creations, 
and  that  is  the  Creator  Himself.  And  they  have  all  been 
lovingly  christened,  each  one  a  name  as  distinct  as  the  names 
of  your  children.  "  He  telleth  the  number  of  the  stars  ;  He 
calleth  them  all  by  their  names."  The  seven  Pleiades  had 
names  given  to  them,  and  they  are  Alcyone,  Merope,  CeLtno, 
Electra,  Sterope,  Taygete^and  Maia. 

But  think  of  the  billions  and  trillions  of  daughters  of 
starry  light  that  God  .'calls  by  name  as  they  sweep  by  Him 
with  beaming  brow  aiid  lustrous  robe.  So  fond  is  God  of 
light,  natural  light,  moral  light,  spiritual  light.  Again  and 
again  is  light  harnessed  for  symbolization — Christ,  the  bright 
and  morning  star  ;  evangelization,  the  daybreak  ;  the  redemp- 
tion of  nations,  Sun  of  Righteousness  rising  with  healing  in 
His  wings.  Oh,  with  so  .many  sorrows  and  sins  and  perplex- 
ities, if  you  want  light  of  comfort,  light  of  pardon,  light  of 
goodness,  in  earnest  prayer  through  Christ,  "  Seek  Him  that 
maketh  the  Seven  Stars  and  Orion." 

V 

) 

THE  IMMUTABLE. 

Again,  Amos  saw,  as  we  must  see,  that  the  God  who 
made  these  two  archipelagoes  of  stars  must  be  an  unchang- 
ing God.  There  had  been  no  change  in  the  stellar  appear- 
ance in  this  herdsman's  lifetime,  and  his  father,  a  shepherd, 
reported  to  him  that  there  had  been  no  change  in  his  life- 
time. And  these  two  clusters  hang  over  the  celestial  arbor 
now  just  as  they  were  the  first  night  that  thc\'  shone  on 
Edenic  bowers  ;  the  same  as  when   the    l\gyptians  built  the 


THE   GREA  T  FIRST  CA  USE.  7 

Pyramids,  from  the  top  of  which  to  watch  them  ;  the  same  as 
when  the  Chaldeans  calculated  the  eclipses ;  the  same  as 
when  Elihu,  according  to  the  book  of  Job,  went  out  to 
study  the  aurora  borealis;  the  same  under  Ptolemaic  system 
and  Copernican  system ;  the  same  from  Calisthenes  to  Py- 
thagoras, and  from  Pythagoras  to  Herschel.  Surely,  a 
changeless  God  must  have  fashioned  the  Pleiades  and  Orion ! 
Oh  what  an  anodyne  amid  theups  and  downs  of  life,  and  the 
flux  and  reflux  of  the  tides  of  prosperity,  to  know  that  we 
have  a  changeless  God,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for- 
ever !  \ 

\ 
CHAIN   0F^  EVENTS. 

All  events  are  linked  together.  You  who  are  aged  can 
look  back  and  group  together  a  thousand  things  in  your  life 
that  once  seemed  isolated.  Onfc;  un|iivided  chain  of  events 
reached  from  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  the  Cross  of  Calvary, 
and  thus  up  to  heaven.  ; 

There  is  a  relation  between  the  sitiallest  insect  that  hums 
in  the  summer  air  and  the  archangel  on  his  throne.  God 
can  trace  a  direct  ancestral  line  from  the  blue-jay,  that  last 
spring  built  its  nest  in  a  tree  behind  the  house,  to  some  one 
of  that  flock  of  birds  which,  when  Noah  hoisted  the  ark's 
window,  with  a  whirl  and  dash  of  bright  wings,  went  out  to 
sing  over  Mount  Ararat.  The  tulips  that  bloomed  this  sum- 
mer in  the  flower-bed  were  nursed  by  last  winter's  snow- 
flakes.  The  farthest  star  on  one/side  the  universe  could  not 
look  to  the  farthest  star  on  the  other  side  and  say,  **  You  are 
no  relation  to  me ;  "  for,  from  that  bright  orb,  a  voice  of 
light  would  ring  across  the  heavens,  responding,  "  Yes,  yes  ; 
we  are  sisters." 

Sir  Sidney  Smith  in  prison  was  playing  lawn  tennis  in  the 
yard,  and  the  ball  flew  over  the  wall.  Another  ball,  contain- 
ing letters,  was  thrown  back,  and  so  communication  was 
opened  with  the  outside  worl'd,  and  Sidney  Smith  escaped  in 
time  to  defeat  Bonaparte's  Egyptian  expedition.  What  a 
small  accident,  connected  with  what  vast  results  !     Sir  Rob- 


8  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

crt  Pccl,  from  a  pattern  lie  drew  on  the  back  of  a  pewter 
dinner-plate,  got  suggestions  of  that  which  led  to  the  im- 
portant invention  by  which  calico  is  printed.  Nothing  in 
God's  universe  swings  at  loose  ends.  Accidents  are  only 
God's  way  of  turning  a  leaf  in  the  book  of  His  eternal  de- 
crees. From  our  cradle  to  our  grave  there  is  a  path  all 
marked  out.  Each  event  in  life  is  connected  with  every 
other  event  in  life.  Our  loss  may  be  the  most  direct  road 
to  our  gain.  Our  defeats  and  victories  are  tivin  brothers. 
The  whole  direction  of  life  was  changed  by  something  which 
at  the  time  seemed  a  trifle,  while  some  occurrence,  which 
seemed  tremendous,  afTected  it  but  little. 

God's  plans  are  magnificent  beyond  all  comprehension. 
He  moulds  us,  turns  and  directs  us,  and  we  know  it  not. 
Thousands  of  years  are  to  Him  but  as  the  flight  of  a. shuttle. 
The  most  terrific  occurrence  does  not  make  God  tremble, 
and  the  most  triumphant  achievement  docs  not  lift  Him  into 
rapture.  That  one  great  thought  of  God  goes  on  through 
the  centuries,  and  nations  rise  and  fall,  and  eras  pass,  and 
the  world  itself  changes,  but  God  still  keeps  the  undivided 
mastery,  linking  event  to  event  and  century  to  century.  To 
God  they  are  all  one  event,  one  history,  one  plan,  one  devel- 
opment, one  system.  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works, 
Lord  God  Almighty!" 

Lord  Hastings  was  beheaded  one  year  after  he  had 
caused  the  death  of  the  Queen's  children,  in  the  very  month, 
the  very  day,  the  very  hour,  and  the  very  moment.  There 
is  iconderful precision  in  the  Divinejud<;;>nents.  The  universe 
is  only  one  thought  of  God.  Those  things  which  seem  frag- 
mentary and  isolated  are  only  different  parts  of  that  one 
great  thought. 

TRUSTING   GOD. 

I  stood  on  the  beach,  looking  off  upon  the  sea  ;  and 
there  was  a  strong  wind  blowing  ;  and  noticing  that  some  of 
the  vessels  were  going  one  way,  and  other  vessels  were  going 
another  way,  I  said  to  myself,  "  How  is    it  that  the  same 


THE   GREAT  FIRST  CAUSE.  g 

wind  sends  one  vessel  in  one  direction  and  another  vessel  in 
another  direction?"  and  I  found  out,  by  looking,  that  it  was 
the  difference  in  the  way  they  had  the  sails  set.  And  so  does 
trouble  come  on  this  world.  Some  men  it  drives  into  the 
harbor  of  heaven,  and  other  men  it  drives  on  the  rocks.  It 
depends  upon  the  way  they  have  their  sails  set.  All  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  of  surging  sorrow  cannot  sink  a 
soul  that  has  asked  for  God's  pilotage.  The  difficulty  is 
that,  when  we  have  misfortunes  of  any  kind,  we  put  them  in 
God's  hand,  and  they  stay  there  a  little  while  ;  and  then  we 
go  and  get  them  again  and  bring  them  back. 

A  vessel  comes  in  from  a  foreign  port.  As  it  comes  near 
the  harbor,  it  sees  a  pilot  floating  about.  It  hails  the  pilot. 
The  pilot  comes  on  board  and  says :  "  Now,  captain,  you 
have  had  a  stormy  passage.  Go  down  and  sleep,  and  I  will 
take  the  vessel  into  New  York  harbor."  After  a  while  the 
captain  begins  to  think  :  "  Am  I  right  in  trusting  this  vessel 
to  that  pilot?  I  guess  I'll  go  up  and  see."  So  he  comes  to 
the  pilot  and  says  :  "  Don't  you  see  that  rock  ?  Don't  you 
see  those  headlands  ?  You  will  wreck  the  ship.  Let  me  lay 
hold  the  helm  for  a  while  for  myself,  and  then  I'll  trust  to 
you."  The  pilot  becomes  angry  and  says,  "  I  will  either 
take  care  of  this  ship  or  not.  If  you  want  to,  I  will  get  into 
my  yawl  and  go  ashore  or  back  to  my  boat."  Now,  we  say 
to  the  Lord,  "  O  God,  take  my  life,  take  my  all,  in  Thy 
keeping !  Be  Thou  my  Guide ;  be  Thou  my  Pilot."  We 
go  along  for  a  little  while,  and  suddenly  wake  up  and  say, 
*'  Things  are  going  all  wrong.  O  Lord,  we  are  driving  on 
these  rocks,  and  Thou  art  going  to  let  us  be  shipwrecked." 
God  says :  ''  You  go  and  rest ;  I  will  take  charge  of  this  ves- 
sel, and  take  it  into  the  harbor."  It  is  God's  business  to 
comfort,  and  it  is  our  business  to  be  comforted. 

A  little  child  went  with  her  father,  a  sea  captain,  to  sea, 
and  when  the  first  storm  came  the  little  child  was  very  much 
frightened,  and  in  the  night  rushed  out  of  the  cabin  and 
said,  "  Where  is  father  ?  where  is  father?"  Then  they  told 
her,  "  Father  is  on  deck,  guiding  the  vessel  and  watching  the 


lO  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

storm."     The  little  child  immediately  returned  to  her  berth 
and  said,  "  It's  all  right,  for  father's  on  deck." 

Oh.  yc  who  arc  tossed  and  driven  in  this  world,  up  by 
the  mountains  and  down  by  the  valleys,  and  at  your  wit's 
end,  I  want  you  to  know  the  Lord  God  is  guiding  the  ship. 
Your  Father  is  on  deck.  He  will  bring  you  through  the 
darkness  into  the  harbor.     Trust  in  the  Lord. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Evolution :  Anti-God,   Anti-Bible,    Anti-Science,   Anti- 
Common-Sense. 

"  O  Timothy,  keep  that  which  is  committed  to  thy  trust,  avoiding 
oppositions  of  science  falsely  so  called." — i  Tim.  6  :  20. 

Science  and  revelation  are  tJie  bass  and  the  soprano  of  the 
same  tune.  The  whole  world  will  yet  acknowledge  the  com- 
plete harmony.  But  between  what  God  describes  as  science 
falsely  so  called  and  revelation,  there  is  an  uncompromising 
war,  and  one  or  the  other  must  go  under. 

THE   CREED   OF  EVOLUTIONISTS. 

The  air  is  filled  with  social  and  platform  and  pulpit  talk 
about  evolution,  and  it  is  high  time  that  the  people  \\\\o 
have  not  time  to  make  investigation  for  themselves  under- 
stand that  evolution  in  the  first  place  is  up  and  down,  out 
and  out  infidelity  ;  in  the  second  place,  it  is  contrary  to  the 
facts  of  science;  and  in  the  third  place,  that  it  is  brutalizing 
in  its  tendencies. 

I  want  you  to  understand  that  Thomas  Paine  and  Hume 
and  Voltaire  no  more  thoroughly  disbelieved  the  Holy 
Scriptures  than  do  all  the  leading  scientists  who  believe  in 
evolution. 

I  put  upon  the  witness  stand  the  leading  evolutionists — 
Ernst  Heckel,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Darwin, 
Spencer.  On  the  witness  stand,  ye  men  of  science,  living 
and  dead,  answer  these  questions  :  Do  you  believe  in  a  God  ? 
No.  And  so  say  they  all.  Do  you  believe  the  Bible  story 
of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  ?  No.  Do  you 
believe  the  miracles  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments?  No. 
Do  you  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  died  to  save  the  nations? 

II 


12  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

No.  Do  you  believe  in  the  regenerating  power  of  the  Holy- 
Ghost?  No.  Do  you  believe  that  human  supplication 
directed  heavenward  ever  makes  any  difference?     No. 

Herbert  Spencer,  in  the  only  address  he  made  in  this 
country,  in  his  very  first  sentence  ascribes  his  physical  ail- 
ments to  fate,  and  the  authorized  report  of  that  address  be- 
gins the  word  fate  with  a  big  "  F."  Professor  Heckcl,  in  the 
very  first  page  of  his  two  great  volumes,  sneers  at  the  Bible 
as  a  so-called  revelation.  Tyndall,  in  his  famous  prayer  test, 
defied  the  whole  of  Christendom  to  show  that  human  sup- 
plication made  any  difference  in  the  result  of  things.  John 
Stuart  Mill  wrote  elaborately  against  Christianity,  and,  to 
show  that  his  rejection  of  it  was  complete,  ordered  this 
epitaph  for  his  tombstone:  "  Most  unhappy."  Huxley  said 
that  at  the  first  reading  of  Darwin's  book  he  was  convinced 
of  the  fact  that  teleology,  by  which  he  means  Christianity, 
had  received  its  death-blow  at  the  hand  of  Mr.  Darwin.  All 
tile  leading  scientists  who  believe  in  evolution,  without  one 
exception  the  world  over,  arc  infidel, 

EVOLUTION    IS    INFIDELITY. 

I  put  Opposite  to  each  other  the  Bible  account  of  how  the 
human  race  started  and  the  evolutionist  account  as  to  how 
the  human  race  startetl.  Bible  account:  "God  said,  let  us 
make  man  in  our  image.  God  created  man  in  his  own 
image;  male  and  female  created  He  them,"  He  breathed 
into  him  the  breath  of  life,  the  whole  story  setting  forth 
the  idea  that  it  was  not  a  perfect  kangaroo,  or  a  perfect 
orang  outang.  but  a  perfect  man.  That  is  the  Bible  account. 
The  evolutionist  account  :  Away  back  in  the  ages  there  were 
four  or  five  primal  germs,  or  seminal  spores,  from  which  all 
the  living  creatures  have  been  evolved.  Go  away  back,  and 
there  you  fmd  a  vegetable  stuff  that  might  be  called  a  mush- 
room. This  mushroom  by  innate  force  develops  a  tadpole, 
the  tadpole  by  innate  force  develops  a  polywog,  the  poly- 
wog  develops  a  fish,  the  fish  by  natural  force  develops  into 
a  reptile,  the   reptile   develops   into  a  quadruped,  the   tpiad- 


EVOLUTION.  13 

ruped  develops  into  a  baboon,  the  baboon  develops  into  a 
man. 

Darwin  says  that  the  human  hand  is  only  a  fish's  fin 
developed.  He  says  that  the  human  lungs  are  only  a  swim- 
bladder  showing  that  we  once  floated  or  were  amphibious. 
He  says  the  human  ear  could  once  have  been  moved  by  force 
of  will,  just  as  a  horse  lifts  its  ear  at  a  frightful  object.  He 
says  the  human  race  were  originally  web-footed.  From 
primal  germ  to  tadpole,  from  tadpole  to  fish,  from  fish  to 
reptile,  from  reptile  to  wolf,  from  wolf  to  chimpanzee,  and 
from  chimpanzee  to  man.  Now,  if  anybody  says  that  the 
Bible  account  of  the  starting  of  the  human  race  and  the 
evolutionist  account  of  the  starting  of  the  human  race  are 
the  same  accounts,  he  makes  an  appalling  misrepresentation. 

Prefer,  if  you  will,  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  the  Species"  to 
the  Book  of  Genesis,  but  know  you  are  an  infidel.  As  for 
myself,  as  Herbert  Spencer  was  not  present  at  the  creation, 
and  the  Lord  Almighty  was  present,  I  prefer  to  take  the 
divine  account  as  to  what  really  occurred  on  that  occasion. 
To  show  that  this  evolution  is  only  an  attempt  to  eject  God 
and  to  postpone  Him  and  to  put  Him  clear  out  of  reach,  I 
ask  a  question  or  tzvo.  The  baboon  made  the  man,  and  the 
wolf  made  the  baboon,  and  the  reptile  made  the  quadruped, 
and  the  fish  made  the  reptile,  and  the  tadpole  made  the 
fish,  and  the  primal  germ  made  the  tadpole.  Who  made 
the  primal  germ  ?  Most  of  the  evolutionists  say,  "  We  don't 
know."  Others  say  it  made  itself.  Others  say  it  was  spon- 
taneous generation.  There  is  not  one  of  them  who  will 
fairly  and  openly  and  frankly  and  emphatically  say,  "  God 
made  it." 

The  nearest  to  a  direct  answer  is  that  made  by  Herbert 
Spencer  in  which  he  says  it  was  made  by  the  great  "  unknow- 
able mystery."  But  here  comes  Huxley,  with  a  pail  of 
protoplasm,  to  explain  the  thing.  The  protoplasm,  he  says, 
is  primal  life,  giving  quality  with  which  the  race  away  back 
in  the  ages  was  started.  With  this  protoplasm  he  proposes 
to  explain  everything.  Dear  Mr.  Huxley,  who  made  the 
protoplasm  ? 


14  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


AN  INCONSISTENT  THEORY. 


To  show  you  that  evolution  is  infidel,  I  place  the  Bible 
account  of  how  the  brute  creation  was  started  opposite  to 
the  evolutionist's  account  of  the  way  the  brute  creation  was 
started.  Bible  account :  You  know  the  Bible  tells  how  that 
the  birds  were  made  at  one  time,  and  the  cattle  made  at 
another  time,  and  the  fish  made  at  another  time,  and  that 
each  brought  forth  after  its  kind.  Evolutionist's  account : 
PVom  four  or  five  primal  germs,  or  seminal  spores,  all  the 
living  creatures  evolved.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  species 
of  insects,  of  reptiles,  of  beasts,  of  fish,  from  four  germs — a 
statement  flatly  contradicting  not  only  the  Bible,  but  the 
very  A  B  C  of  science.  A  species  never  develops  into  any- 
thing but  its  own  species.  In  all  the  ages  and  in  all  the 
world  there  has  never  been  an  exception  to  it.  The  shark 
never  comes  of  a  whale,  nor  the  pigeon  of  a  vulture,  nor  the 
butterfly  of  a  wasp.  Species  never  cross  over.  If  there  be 
an  attempt  at  it,  it  is  hybrid,  and  hybrid  is  always  sterile  and 
has  no  descendants. 

Agassiz  says  that  he  found  in  a  reef  of  Florida  the  re- 
rcmains  of  insects  thirty  thousand  years  old — not  three  but 
thirty  thousand  years  old — and  that  they  were  just  like  the 
insects  now.  There  has  been  no  change.  All  the  facts  of 
ornithology  and  zoology  and  ichthyology  and  conchology, 
but  an  echo  of  Genesis  first  and  twenty-first — "  every  winged 
fowl  after  his  kind."  Every  creature  after  its  kind.  When 
common  observation  and  science  corroborate  the  Bible,  I  will 
not  stultify  myself  by  surrendering  to  the  elaborated  guesses 
of  evolutionists. 

llli:  nuicix  OK  WORLDS. 

To  show  that  evolution  is  infidel  I  place  also  the  Bible 
account  of  how  worlds  were  made  opposite  the  evolutionist 
account  of  h.ow  worlds  were  made.  Bible  account:  God 
made  two  great  lights— the  one  to  rule  the  day,  the  other  to 
rule   the   night:   He  made  the   stars  also.     Evolutionist  ac- 


evolution:  15 

count :  Away  back  in  the  ages,  there  was  a  fire  mist  or  star 
dust,  and  this  fire  mist  cooled  off  into  granite,  and  then  tliis 
granite  by  earthquake  and  by  storm  and  by  hght  was  shaped 
into  mountains  and  valleys  and  seas,  and  so  what  was  origi- 
nally fire  mist  became  what  we  call  the  earth. 

Who  made  tJic fire  mist?  Who  set  the  fire  mist  to  world- 
making?  Who  cooled  off  the  fire  mist  into  granite?  You 
have  pushed  God  some  sixty  or  seventy  million  miles  from 
the  earth,  but  He  is  too  near  yet  for  the  health  of  evolution. 
For  a  great  while  the  evolutionists  boasted  that  they  had 
found  the  very  stuff  out  of  which  this  world  and  all  worlds 
were  made.  They  lifted  the  telescope  and  they  saw  it,  the 
very  material  out  of  which  worlds  made  themselves.  Nebula 
of  simple  gas.  They  laughed  in  triumph  because  they  had 
found  tJie  factory  where  the  ivorlds  were  manufactured,  and 
there  was  no  God  anywhere  around  the  factory!  But  in  an 
unlucky  hour  for  infidel  evolutionists  the  spectroscopes  of 
Fraunhofer  and  Kirchoff  were  invented,  by  which  they 
saw  into  that  nebula  and  found  it  was  not  a  simple  gas,  but 
was  a  compound,  and  hence  had  to  be  supplied  from  some 
other  source,  and  that  implied  a  God  ;  and  away  went  their 
theory  shattered  into  everlasting  demolition. 

So  these  infidel  evolutionists  go  wandering  up  and  down 
guessing  through  the  universe.  Anything  to  push  back 
Jehovah  from  His  empire  and  make  the  one  Book  which  is 
His  great  communication  to  the  soul  of  the  human  race  ap- 
pear obsolete  and  a  derision.  But  I  am  glad  to  know  that 
while  some  of  these  scientists  have  gone  into  evolution, 
there  are  more  that  do  not  believe  it.  Among  them,  the 
man  who  by  most  is  considered  the  greatest  scientist  we 
ever  had  this  side  the  water — Agassiz.  A  name  that  makes 
every  intelligent  man  the  earth  over  uncover. 

Agassiz  says :  "  The  manner  in  which  the  evolution 
theory  in  zoology  is  treated  would  lead  those  who  are  not 
special  zoologists  to  suppose  that  observations  have  been 
made  by  which  it  can  be  inferred  that  there  is  in  nature 
such  a  thing  as  change  among  organized  beings  actually  tak- 
ing place.     There  is  no  such  thing  on  record.     It  is  shifting 


l6  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

the  ground  of  observation  from  one  field  of  observation  to 
another  to  make  this  statement ;  and  when  the  assertions  go 
so  far  as  to  exchide  from  the  domain  of  science  those  who 
will  not  be  dragged  into  this  mire  of  mere  assertion,  then  it 
is  time  to  protest." 

JUMPINC;  OVERBOARD. 

With  equal  vehemence  against  this  doctrine  of  evolution 
Hugh  Miller,  Faraday,  Brewster,  Dana,  Dawson,  and  hun- 
dreds of  scientists  in  this  country  and  other  countries  have 
made  protest.  I  know  that  the  few  men  who  have  adopted 
the  theory  make  more  noise  than  the  thousands  who  have 
rejected  it.  The  Bothnia  of  the  Cunard  Line  took  five  hun- 
dred passengers  safely  from  New  York  to  Liverpool.  Not 
one  of  the  five  hundred  made  any  excitement.  But  after 
we  had  been  four  days  out,  one  morning  we  found  on  deck 
a  man's  hat,  coat,  vest  and  boots,  implying  that  some  one 
had  jumped  overboard.  Forthwith  we  all  began  to  talk 
about  that  one  man.  There  was  more  talk  about  that  one 
man  overboard  than  all  the  five  hundred  passengers  that 
rode  on  in  safety.  "Why  did  he  jump  overboard?"  "I 
wonder  when  he  jumped  overboard?"  "  I  wonder  if  when 
he  jumped  overboard  he  would  like  to  have  jumped  back 
again?"  "I  wonder  if  a  fish  caught  him,  or  whether  he 
went  clear  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea?"  And  for  three 
or  four  days  afterwards  we  talked  about  that  poor  man. 

Here  is  the  glorious  and  magnificent  theory  that  God  by 
His  omnipotent  power  made  man,  by  His  omnipotent  power 
made  the  brute  creation,  and  by  His  omnipotent  power 
made  all  worlds,  and  five  thousand  scientists  have  taken  pas- 
sage on  board  that  magnificent  theor}-,  but  ten  or  fifteen 
have  jumped  overboard.  They  make  more  talk  than  all  the 
five  thousand  that  did  not  jump.  I  am  politely  asked  to 
jump  with  them.  Thank  you,  gentlemen,  I  am  very  much 
obliged  to  you.  I  think  I  shall  stick  to  the  old  Cunarder. 
If  you  want  to  jump  overboard,  jump,  and  test  for  j'our- 
selves  whether  yowx  hand  was  really  a  fish's  fin,  and  whether 


EVOLUTION.  17 

you  were  web-footed  originally,  and  whether  your  lungs 
were  a  swim-bladder.  And  as  in  every  experiment  there 
must  be  a  division  of  labor,  some  who  experiment  and  some 
who  observe,  you  make  the  experiment  and  I  will  observe ! 

ONE   OF  THE  TENETS. 

There  is  one  tenet  of  evolution  which  it  is  demanded  we 
adopt,  that  which  Darwin  calls  "  Natural  Selection,"  and  that 
which  Wallace  calls  the  "  Survival  of  the  Fittest''  By  this 
they  mean  that  the  human  race  and  the  brute  creation  are 
all  the  time  improving  because  the  weak  die  and  the  strong 
live.  Those  who  do  not  die  survive  because  they  are  the 
fittest.  They  say'  the  breed  of  sheep  and  cattle  and  dogs 
and  men  is  all  the  time  naturally  improving.  No  need  of 
God  or  Bible  or  religion,  but  just  natural  progress. 

You  see  the  race  started  with  "  spontaneous  generation," 
and  then  it  goes  right  on  until  Darwin  can  take  us  up  with 
his  "  natural  selection,"  and  Wallace  can  take  us  up  with  his 
"  survial  of  the  fittest,"  and  so  we  go  right  on  up  forever. 
Beautiful !  But  do  the  fittest  survive  ?  Garfield  dead  in 
September — Guiteau  surviving  until  the  following  June. 
"  Survival  of  the  fittest  ?"  Ah  !  no.  The  martyrs,  religious 
and  political,  dying  for  their  principles,  their  bloody  perse- 
cutors living  on  to  old  age.  "  Survival  of  the  fittest?"  Five 
hundred  thousand  brave  Northern  men  marching  out  to  meet 
five  hundred  thousand  brave  Southern  men,  and  die  on  the 
battle-field  for  a  principle.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  them 
went  down  into  the  grave  trenches.  We  stayed  at  home  in 
comfortable  quarters.  Did  they  die  because  they  were  not 
as  fit  to  live  as  we  who  survived  ?  Ah  !  no  ;  not  the  "  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest."  Ellsworth  and  Nathaniel  Lyon  falling 
on  the  Northern  side.  Albert  Sidney  Johnston  and  Stone- 
wall Jackson  falling  on  the  Southern  side.  Did  they  fall  be- 
cause they  were  not  as  fit  to  live  as  the  soldiers  and  the  gen- 
erals who  came  back  in  safety  ?  No.  Bitten  with  the  frosts 
of  the  second  death  be  the  tongue  that  dares  utter  it !  It  is 
not  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest." 


1 8  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

How  has  it  been  in  the  families  of  the  world  ?  How  was 
it  with  the  child  physically  the  strongest,  intellectually  the 
brightest,  in  disposition  the  kindest?  Did  that  child  die  be- 
cause it  was  not  as  fit  to  live  as  those  of  your  family  that 
survived?  Not  "the  survival  of  the  fittest."  In  all  com- 
munities some  of  the  noblest,  grandest  men  dying  in  youth, 
or  in  mid  life,  while  some  of  the  meanest  and  most  contemp- 
tible live  on  to  old  age.     Not  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest." 

NO   NATURAL   PROGRESS. 

But  to  show  you  that  this  doctrine  is  antagonistic  to  the 
Bible  and  to  common-sense  I  have  only  to  prove  to  you  that 
there  has  been  no  natural  progress.  Vast  improvement  from 
another  source,  but,  mind  you,  no  natural  progress.  Where, 
where  is  the  fine  horse  in  any  of  our  parks  whose  picture  of 
eye  and  mane  and  nostril  and  neck  and  haunches  are  worthy 
of  being  compared  to  JoUs  picture  of  a  horse  as  he,  thousands 
of  years  ago,  heard  it  paw  and  neigh  and  champ  its  bit  for 
the  battle  ?  Pigeons  of  to-day  not  so  wise  as  the  carrier 
pigeons  of  five  hundred  years  ago — pigeons  that  carried  the 
mails  from  army  to  army  and  from  city  to  city  ;  one  of  them 
flung  into  the  sky  at  Rome  or  Venice  landing  without  ship 
or  rail  train  in  London. 

And  as  to  the  human  race,  so  far  as  mere  natural  progress 
is  concerned,  it  started  with  men  ten  feet  high ;  now  the 
average  is  about  five  feet  six  inches.  It  started  with  men 
living  two  hundred,  four  hundrctl,  eight  hundred,  nine  hun- 
dred years,  and  now  thirty  years  is  more  than  the  average 
of  human  life.  Mighty  progress  we  have  made,  haven't  we? 
I  went  into  the  cathedral  at  York,  England,  and  the  best 
artists  in  England  had  just  been  painting  a  window  in  that 
cathedral,  and  right  beside  it  was  a  window  painted  four 
hundred  years  ago,  and  there  is  not  a  man  on  earth  but 
would  say  that  the  modern  painting  of  the  window  by  the 
best  artists  of  England  is  not  worthy  of  being  compared  with 
the  painting  of  four  hundred  years  ago  right  beside  it.  Vast 
improvement,  as  I  shall  show  you  in  a  minute  or  two,  but 
no  natural  c-volution. 


EVOLUTION.  19 

EVOLUTION   DOWNWARD. 

I  tell  you,  my  friends,  that  natural  evolution  is  not  up- 
ward, but  is  always  downward.  Hear  Christ's  account  of  it. 
Fifteenth  Matthew  and  nineteenth  verse  :  "  Out  of  the  heart 
proceed  evil  thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornications, 
thefts,  false  witness,  blasphemies."  This  is  what  Christ  said 
of  Evolution.  Give  natural  evolution  full  swing  in  our  world 
and  it  will  evolve  into  two  hemispheres  of  crime,  two  hemi-, 
spheres  of  penitentiary,  two  hemispheres  of  lazaretto,  two 
hemispheres  of  brothel.  New  Yorks  Tombs  ;  Moyamensing 
Prison,  Philadelphia ;  Seven  Dials,  London  ;  and  Cowgate, 
Edinburgh;  only  festering  carbuncles  on  the  face  and  neck  of 
natural  evolution.  See  what  the  Bible  says  about  the  heart, 
and  then  what  evolution  says  about  the  heart.  Evolution 
says,  "  better  and  better  and  better  gets  the  heart  by  natural 
improvement."  The  Bible  says :  "  The  heart  is  deceitful 
above  all  things,  and  desperately  wicked.  Who  can  know 
it?"  When  you  can  evolve  fragrance  from  malodor,  and  ora- 
torio from  a  buzz-saw,  and  fall  pippins  from  a  basket  of  de- 
cayed crab  apples,  then  you  can  by  natural  evolution  from 
the  human  heart  develop  goodness.  Ah  !  my  friends,  evolu- 
tion is  always  downward  ;  never  upward. 

BIBLE   EVOLUTION. 

I  am  not  a  pessimist,  but  an  optimist.  I  do  not  believe 
everything  is  going  to  destruction  ;  I  believe  everything  is 
going  on  to  redemption.  But  it  will  not  be  through  the  in- 
fidel doctrine  of  evolution,  but  through  our  glorious  Chris- 
tianity, which  has  effected  all  the  good  that  has  ever  been 
wrought  and  which  is  yet  to  reconstruct  all  the  nations. 

Away  with  your  rotten,  deceptive,  infidel,  and  blasphe- 
mous evolution,  and  give  us  the  Bible,  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

"  Salvation  !  let  the  echo  fly 
The  spacious  earth  around, 
Till  all  the  armies  of  the  sky 
Conspire  to  raise  the  sound." 


20  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


MODERN   EVOLUTIONISTS. 


Oh,  it  makes  mo  sick  to  sec  these  Htcrary  fops  going 
along  with  a  copy  of  Darwin  under  one  arm  and  a  case  of 
transfixed  grasshoppers  and  butterflies  under  the  other  arm, 
telling  about  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest,"  and  Huxley's  pro- 
toplasm, and  the  nebular  hypothesis. 

As  near  as  I  can  tell,  evolutionists  seem  to  think  that  God 
at  the  start  had  not  made  up  His  mind  as  to  exactly  what 
He  would  make,  and  so  He  has  been  changing  it  all  through 
the  ages. 

Evolution  is  one  great  mystery  ;  it  hatches  out  fifty  mys- 
teries, and  the  fifty  hatch  out  a  thousand,  and  the  thousand 
hatch  out  a  million.  Why,  my  brother,  not  admit  the  one 
great  mystery  of  God,  and  have  that  settle  all  the  other  mys- 
teries? I  can  more  easily  appreciate  the  fact  that  God  by 
one  stroke  of  his  omnipotence  could  make  man  than  I  could 
realize  how  out  of  five  millions  of  ages  He  could  have 
evolved  one,  putting  on  a  little  here  and  a  little  there.  It 
would  have  been  just  as  great  a  miracle  for  God  to  have 
turned  an  orang-outang  into  a  man  as  to  make  a  man  out 
and  out — the  one  job  just  as  big  as  the  other. 

It  seems  to  me  we  had  better  let  God  have  a  little  place 
in  our  world  somewhere.  It  seems  to  me  if  we  cannot  have 
Him  make  all  creatures,  we  had  better  have  Him  make  two 
or  three.  There  ought  to  be  some  place  where  He  could 
stay  without  interfering  with  the  evolutionists.  "  No,"  says 
Darwin.  And  so  for  years  he  is  trying  to  make  fan-tailed 
pigeons  into  some  other  kind  of  pigeon,  or  to  have  them  go 
into  something  that  is  not  a  pigeon — turning  them  into 
quail,  or  barnj-ard  fowl,  or  brownthrcsher.  But  pigeon  it  is. 
And  others  have  tried  with  the  ox  and  the  div^  and  the 
horse,  but  they  stayed  in  their  species.  If  they  attempt  to 
cross  over,  it  is  a  hybrid,  and  a  hx'brid  is  always  sterile  and 
goes  into  extinction.  There  has  been  only  one  successful  at- 
tenif>t  to  pass  over  from  speechless  animal  to  the  articulation 
of  man,  and  that  was  the  attempt  which   Balaam  witnessed 


EVOLUTION.  21 

in  the  beast  that  he  rode ;  but  an  angel  of  the  Lord,  with 
drawn  sword,  soon  stopped  that  long-eared  evolutionist. 

But,  says  some  one,  "  if  we  cannot  have  God  make  a  man, 
let  us  have  Him  make  ahorse."  "Oh  no!"  says  Huxley,  in 
his  great  lectures  in  New  York  several  years  ago.  No,  he 
does  not  want  any  God  around  the  premises.  God  did  not 
make  the  horse.  The  horse  came  of  the  pliohippus,  and  the 
phohippus  came  from  the  protohippus,  and  the  protohippus 
from  the  mio-hippus,  and  the  mio-hippus  came  from  the 
meshohippus,  and  the  meshohippus  came  from  the  orohip- 
pus,  and  so  away  back,  all  the  living  creatures,  we  trace  it 
in  a  line  until  we  get  to  the  moneron  ;  and  no  evidence  of 
divine  intermeddling  with  the  creation  until  you  get  to  the 
moneron  ;  and  that,  Huxley  says,  is  of  so  low  a  form  of  life 
that  the  probability  is,  it  just  made  itself  or  was  the  result  of 
spontaneous  generation.  What  a  narrow  escape  from  the 
necessity  of  having  a  God ! 

I  tell  you  plainly  that  if  your  father  was  a  muskrat  and 
your  mother  an  oppossum,  and  your  great  aunt  a  kangaroo, 
and  the  toads  and  the  snapping-turtles  were  your  illustrious 
predecessors,  my  father  was  God.  I  know  it.  I  feel  it.  It 
thrills  through  me  with  an  emphasis  and  an  ecstasy  which 
all  your  arguments  drawn  from  anthropology  and  biology 
and  zoology  and  morology  and  paleontology  and  all  other 
ologies  can  never  shake. 

SONS   OF   A   GORILLA    OR    SONS   OF    GOD? 

"  Professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they  became  fools, 
and  changed  the  glory  of  the  uncorruptible  God  into  an  im- 
age made  like  to  corruptible  man,  and  to  birds,  and  four- 
footed  beasts,  and  creeping  things." — ROM.  i:  22,  23. 

A  full-length  portrait  of  an  evolutionist  who  substitutes 
the  bestial  origin  for  the  divine  origin.  Sons  of  a  gorilla,  or 
sons  of  God  ?  is  the  great  question  of  this  day,  and  every  in- 
telligent man  and  woman  must  be  able  to  give  an  intelligent 
answer. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  we  find  that  God,  without 


22  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

any  consultation,  created  the  light,  created  the  trees,  created 
the  fish,  created  the  fowl,  but  when  He  was  about  to  make 
man  He  called  a  convention  of  divinity,  as  though  to  imply 
that  all  the  powers  of  Godhead  were  to  be  enlisted  in  the 
achievement.  "  Let  us  make  man."  Tut  a  whole  ton  of  cm 
phasis  on  that  word  "  us."  "  Let  us  make  man."  All  to  shozv 
the  prc-ct)iincnce  of  man  over  the  brute  and  the  absurdity  of 
evolution. 

THE   MISSING  LINK. 

Evolutionists  are  trying  to  impress  people  with  the  idea 
that  there  is  an  ancestral  line  leading  from  the  primal  germ 
on  up  through  the  serpent,  and  on  up  through  the  quad- 
ruped, and  on  up  through  the  gorilla  to  man.  They  admit 
that  there  is  "  a  missing  link,"  as  they  call  it:  but  there  is  not 
a  missing  link — it  is  a  whole  chain  gone.  Between  the  phy- 
sical construction  of  the  highest  animal  and  the  physical 
construction  of  the  lowest  man,  there  is  a  chasm  as  wide 
as  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

Evolutionists  tell  us  that  somewhere  in  central  Africa,  or 
in  Borneo,  there  is  a  creature  half-way  between  the  brute 
and  the  man,  and  that  that  creature  is  the  highest  step  in 
the  animal  ascent  and  the  lowest  step  in  the  human  creation. 
But  what  are  the  facts?  The  brain  of  the  largest  gorilla 
that  was  ever  found  is  thirty  cubic  inches,  while  the  brain  of 
the  most  ignorant  man  that  was  ever  found  is  seventy.  Vast 
difference  between  thirty  and  seventy.  It  needs  a  bridge  of 
forty  arches  to  span  that  gulf. 

Beside  that,  there  is  a  difference  between  the  gorilla  and 
the  man — a  difference  of  blood  globule,  ■a,  difference  of  nerve, 
a  difference  of  muscle,  a  difference  of  bone,  a  difference  of 
sinew. 

Beside  that,  if  a  pair  of  apes  had  a  man  for  descendant, 
why  would  not  all  the  apes  have  the  same  kind  of  descend- 
ants? Can  it  be  that  that  one  favored  pair  only  was  hon- 
ored with  human  progeny?  Beside  that,  evolution  says  that 
as  one  species  rises  to  another  species,  the  old  type  dies  off. 


EVOLUTION.  23 

Then  how  is  it  that  there  are  whole  kingdoms  of  chimpan- 
zee and  p^orilla  and  baboon  ? 


EVOLUTION   OF   A   BIRD  S   WING. 

The  evolutionists  have  come  together  and  have  tried  to 
explain  a  bird's  wing.  Their  theory  has  always  been  that  a 
faculty  of  an  animal  while  being  developed  must  always  be 
useful  and  always  beneficial,  but  the  wing  of  a  bird,  in  the 
thousands  of  years  it  was  being  developed,  so  far  from  being 
any  help  must  have  been  a  hindrance  until  it  could  be 
brought  into  practical  use  away  on  down  in  the  ages.  Must 
there  not  have  been  an  intelligent  will  somewhere  that 
formed  that  wonderful  flying  instrument,  so  that  a  bird  five 
hundred  times  heavier  than  the  air  can  mount  it  and  put 
gravitation  under  claw  and  beak?  That  wonderful  mechani- 
cal instrument,  the  wing,  with  between  twenty  and  thirty 
different  apparati  curiously  constructed, — does  it  not  imply 
a  divine  intelligence? — does  it  not  imply  a  direct  act  of  some 
outside  being?  All  the  evolutionists  in  the  world  cannot 
explain  a  bird's  wing,  or  an  insect's  wing. 

THE   RATTLESNAKE. 

So  they  are  confounded  by  the  rattle  of  the  rattlesnake. 
Ages  before  that  reptile  had  any  enemies,  this  warning 
weapon  was  created.  Why  was  it  created  ?  When  the  rep- 
tile far  back  in  the  ages  had  no  enemies,  why  this  warning 
weapon?  There  must  have  been  a  divine  intelligence  fore 
seeing  and  knowing  that  in  the  ages  to  come  that  reptile 
would  have  enemies  and  then  this  warning  weapon  would 
be  brought  into  use.  You  see  evolution  at  every  step  is  a 
contradiction  or  a  monstrosity.  At  every  stage  of  animal 
life  as  well  as  at  every  stage  of  human  life,  there  is  evidence 
of  direct  action  of  divine  will. 

Beside  that,  it  is  very  evident  from  another  fact  that  we 
are  an  entirely  different  creation,  and  that  there  is  no  kinship. 
The  animal  in  a  few  hours  or  months  comes  to  full  strength 


24  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  can  take  care  of  itself.  The  human  race  for  the  first 
one,  two,  three,  five,  ten  years  is  in  complete  helplessness. 
The  chick  just  come  out  of  its  shell  begins  to  pick  up  its 
own  food.  The  dog,  the  wolf,  the  lion,  soon  earn  their  own 
livelihood  and  act  for  their  own  defence.  The  human  race 
does  not  come  to  development  until  twenty  or  thirty  years 
of  age,  and  by  that  time  the  animals  that  were  born  the 
same  year  the  man  was  born — the  vast  majority  of  them 
have  died  of  old  age.  This  shows  there  is  no  kinship,  there 
is  no  similarity.  If  wc  had  been  born  of  the  beast,  we 
would  have  had  the  beast's  strength  at  the  start,  or  it  would 
have  had  our  weakness.     Not  only  different  but  opposite. 

EVOLUTION   A   GUESS. 

Darwin  admits  that  the  dovecote  pigeon  has  not  changed 
in  thousands  of  years.  It  is  demonstrated  over  and  over 
again  that  the  lizard  on  the  lowest  formation  of  rocks  was 
just  as  complete  as  the  lizard  now.  It  is  shown  that  the 
ganoid,  the  first  fish,  was  just  as  complete  as  the  sturgeon, 
another  name  for  the  same  fish  now.  Darwin's  entire  sys- 
tem is  a  guess,  and  Huxley,  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  Tyn- 
dall,  and  especially  Professor  Heckel,  come  to  help  him  in 
the  guess,  and  guess  about  the  brute,  and  guess  about  man, 
and  guess  about  worlds,  but  as  to  having  one  solid  foot  of 
ground  to  stand  on,  they  never  have  had  it  and  never  will 
have  it. 

THE   INWARD   TESTIMONY. 

I  put  in  opposition  to  these  evolutionist  theories  the 
inward  consciousness  that  we  have  no  consanguinity  with  the 
dog  that  fawns  at  our  feet,  or  the  spider  that  crawls  on  the 
wall,  or  the  fish  that  flops  in  the  frying-pan,  or  the  crow  that 
swoops  on  the  field  carcass,  or  the  swine  that  wallows  in  the 
mire.  Everybody  sees  the  outrage  it  would  be  to  put  be- 
side the  Bible  record  that  Abraham  begat  Isaac,  and  Isaac 
begat  Jacob,  and  Jacob  begat  Judah,  the  record  that  the 
microscopic  animalcule  begat  the  tadpole,  and  the  tadpole 


EVOLUTION.  25 

begat  the  polliwog,  and  the  polliwog  begat  the  serpent,  and 
the  serpent  begat  the  quadruped,  and  the  quadruped  begat 
the  baboon,  and  the  baboon  begat  man. 

A   STRANGE   GENEALOGY! 

The  evolutionists  tell  us  that  the  apes  were  originally- 
fond  of  climbing  the  trees,  but  after  a  while  they  lost  their 
prehensile  power,  and  therefore  could  not  climb  with  any 
facility,  and  hence  they  surrendered  monkeydom  and  set  up 
in  business  as  men.  Failures  as  apes,  successes  as  men. 
According  to  the  evolutionists  a  man  is  a  bankrupt  monkey. 
I  pity  the  person  who  in  every  nerve  and  muscle  and  bone 
and  mental  faculty  and  spiritual  experience  does  not  realize 
that  he  is  higher  in  origin  and  has  had  a  grander  ancestry 
than  the  beasts  which  perish.  However  degraded  men  and 
women  may  be,  and  though  they  may  have  foundered  on 
the  rocks  of  crime  and  sin,  and  though  we  shudder  as  we 
pass  them,  nevertheless  there  is  something  within  us  that 
tells  us  they  belong  to  the  same  great  brotherhood  and 
sisterhood  of  our  race,  and  our  sympathies  are  aroused  in 
regard  to  them.  But  gazing  upon  the  swiftest  gazelle,  or 
upon  the  tropical  bird  of  most  flamboyant  wing,  or  upon  the 
curve  of  grandest  courser's  neck,  we  feel  there  is  no  consan- 
guinity. The  grandest,  the  highest,  the  noblest  of  them 
ten  thousand  fathoms  below  what  we  are  conscious  of  being. 

It  is  not  that  we  are  stronger  than  they,  for  the  lion  with 
one  stroke  of  his  paw  could  put  us  into  the  dust.  It  is  not 
that  we  have  better  eyesight,  for  the  eagle  can  descry  a 
mole  a  mile  away.  It  is  not  that  we  are  fleeter  of  foot,  for 
a  roebuck  in  a  flash  is  out  of  sight,  just  seeming  to  touch  the 
earth  as  he  goes.  Many  of  the  animal  creation  surpassing  us 
in  fleetness  of  foot  and  in  keenness  of  nostril  and  in  strength 
of  limb  ;  but  notwithstanding  all  that,  there  is  something 
within  us  that  tells  us  we  are  of  celestial  pedigree.  Not  of 
the  mollusk,  not  of  the  rhizopod,  not  of  the  primal  germ,  but 
of  the  living  and  omnipotent  God.  Lineage  of  the  skies. 
Genealogy  of  Heaven. 


26  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


THE   JURY   DISAGREE. 

Evolutionists  sa)'  tliat  science  is  overcoming  religion  in  our 
day.  They  look  through  the  spectacles  of  the  infidel  scien- 
tists and  they  say,  "It  is  impossible  that  this  book  be  true ; 
people  are  finding  it  out  ;  the  Bible  has  got  to  go  overboard." 
Science  is  going  to  throw  it  overboard.  Do  you  believe 
that  the  Bible  account  of  the  origin  of  life  will  be  over- 
thrown by  infidel  scientists  who  have  fifty  different  the- 
ories about  tiie  origin  of  life?  If  they  should  come  up 
in  solid  phalanx,  all  agreeing  on  one  sentiment  and  one  the- 
ory, perhaps  Christianity  might  be  damaged ;  but  there  are 
not  so  many  differences  of  opinion  inside  the  church  as  out- 
side the  church. 

The  fact  is  that  some  naturalists,  just  as  soon  as  they  find 
out  the  difference  between  the  feelers  of  a  wasp  and  the 
horns  of  a  beetle,  begin  to  patronize  the  Almighty;  while 
Agassiz,  glorious  Agassiz,  who  never  made  any  pretension 
to  being  a  Christian,  puts  both  his  feet  on  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  and  says :  "  I  see  that  many  of  the  naturalists  of 
our  day  arc  adopting  facts  which  do  not  bear  observation,  or 
have  not  passed  under  observation."  These  men  warring 
with  each  other — Darwin  warring  against  Lamarck,  Wallace 
warring  against  Cope,  even  Herschel  denouncing  Ferguson. 
They  do  not  agree  about  anything.  They  do  not  agree  on 
embryology,  do  not  agree  on  the  gradation  of  the  species. 

What  do  they  agree  on  ?  Herschel  writes  a  whole  chap- 
ter on  the  errors  of  astronomy.  La  Place  declares  that  the 
moon  was  not  put  in  the  right  place.  He  says  if  it  had  been 
put  four  times  farther  from  the  earth  than  it  is  now,  there 
would  be  more  harmony  in  the  universe  ;  but  Lionville 
comes  up  just  in  time  to  prove  that  tlie  moon  was  put  in  the 
right  place.  How  many  colors  woven  into  the  light  ?  Seven, 
says  Isaac  Newton.  Three,  says  David  Brewster.  How 
high  is  the  Aurora  horcalis  ?  Two  ant!  a  half  miles,  says 
Lias.  How  far  is  the  sun  from  the  earth?  Seventy-six 
million  miles,  says   Lacalle.      Eight}-  two  million  miles,  says 


EVOLUTION.  27 

Humboldt.  Ninety  million  miles,  says  Henderson.  One 
hundred  and  four  million  miles,  says  Mayer.  Only  a  little 
difference  of  twenty-eight  million  miles  !  All  split  up  among 
themselves — not  agreeing  on  anything. 

Here  these  infidel  scientists  have  empanelled  themselves 
as  a  jury  to  decide  this  trial  between  evolution,  the  plaintiff, 
and  Christianity,  the  defendant;  and  after  being  out  for  cen- 
turies they  come  in  to  render  their  verdict.  Gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  have  you  agreed  on  a  verdict  ?  No,  no.  Then  go 
back  for  another  five  hundred  years  and  deliberate  and  agree 
on  something.  There  is  not  a  poor  miserable  wretch  in  the 
Tombs  Court  to-morrow  that  could  be  condemned  by  a  jury 
that  did  not  agree  on  the  verdict,  and  yet  you  expect  us  to 
give  up  our  glorious  Christianity  to  please  these  men,  who 
cannot  agree  on  anything. 

[The  Editor  adds  :  By  the  disagreement  of  the  jury,  the  plaintiff,  Evolu- 
tion, loses  the  case.] 

SPECIES   TO   REMAIN   DISTINCT. 

I  believe  that  God  made  the  world  as  He  wanted  to  have 
it,  and  that  the  happiness  of  all  the  species  will  depend  upon 
their  staying  in  the  species  where  they  were  created. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  in  a  natural  amphitheatre  of 
the  forest  a  convention  of  animals,  and  a  gorilla  from  west- 
ern Africa  came  in  with  his  club  and  pounded  "  Order  !" 
Then  he  sat  down  in  a  chair  of  twisted  forest  roots.  The 
delegation  of  birds  came  in  and  took  their  position  in  the 
galleries  of  the  hills  and  the  tree-tops.  And  a  delegation  of 
reptiles  came  in,  and  they  took  their  position  in  the  pit  of 
the  valley.  And  the  tiers  of  rocks  were  occupied  by  the 
delegation  of  intermediate  animals  ;  and  there  was  a  great 
aquarium  and  a  canal  leading  into  it  through  which  came  the 
monsters  of  the  deep  to  join  the  great  convention.  And  on 
one  table  of  rock  there  were  four  or  five  primal  germs  under 
a  glass  case,  and  in  a  cup  on  another  table  of  rock  there  was 
a  quantity  of  protoplasm. 

Then    this  gorilla  of   the    African   forest,  with   his  club, 


28  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

pounded  again,"  Order  !  order  !"  and  tlien  he  cried  out :  "  Oh, 
you  great  throng  of  beasts  and  birds  and  reptiles  and  insects, 
I  have  called  you  together  to  propose  that  wc  move  up  into 
the  human  race,  and  be  beasts  no  longer ;  too  long  already 
have  we  been  hunted  and  caged  and  harnessed  ;  we  shall 
stand  it  no  longer."  At  that  speech  the  whole  convention 
broke  out  in  roars  of  enthusiasm  like  as  though  there  were 
many  menageries  being  fed  by  their  keepers,  and  it  did  seem 
as  if  the  whole  convention  would  march  right  up  and  take 
possession  of  the  earth  and  the  human  race. 

But  aft  oil  lion  arose,  his  mane  white  with  many  years, 
and  he  uttered  his  voice  ;  and  when  that  old  lion  uttered  his 
voice,  all  the  other  beasts  of  the  forest  were  still,  and  he  said  : 
"  Peace,  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  forest.  I  think  we  have 
been  placed  in  the  spheres  for  which  we  were  intended  ;  I 
think  our  Creator  knew  the  place  that  was  good  for  us." 

He  could  proceed  no  further,  for  the  whole  convention 
broke  out  in  an  uproar  like  the  House  of  Commons  when  the 
Irish  question  comes  up,  or  the  American  Congress  the  night 
of  adjournment,  and  the  reptiles  hissed  with  indignation  at 
the  lionine  Gambetta,  and  the  frogs  croaked  their  contempt, 
and  the  bears  growled  their  contempt,  and  the  panthers 
snarled  their  disgust,  and  the  insects  buzzed  and  buzzed  with 
excitement,  and  though  the  gorilla  of  the  African  forest,  with 
his  club,  pounded,  "  Order,  order  !"  there  was  no  order  ;  and 
there  was  a  thrusting  out  of  adderine  sting,  and  a  swinging 
of  elephantine  tusk,  and  a  stroke  of  beak,  and  a  swing  of  claw, 
until  it  seemed  as  if  the  convention  would  be  massacred. 

Just  at  that  moment  appeared  Agassiz  and  Audubon  and 
Silliman,  and  Moses.  And  Agassiz  cried  out,  "  Oh,  }-ou 
beasts  of  the  forests,  I  have  studied  your  ancestral  records  and 
found  you  always  have  been  beasts,  and  you  always  will  be 
beasts  ;  be  contented  to  be  beasts." 

And  Audubon  aimed  his  gun  at  a  bald-headed  eagle, 
which  dropped  from  the  gallery,  and  as  it  dropped  struck  a 
serpent  that  was  winding  around  one  of  the  pillars  to  get  up 
higher.  Silliman  threw  a  rock  of  the  tertiary  formation  at 
the  mammals,  and  Moses  thundered,  *'  Every  beast  after  its 


EVOLUTION.  29 

kind,  every  bird  after  its  kind,  every  fish  after  its  kind." 
And,  lo  !  tJie  parliament  of  ivild  beasts  was  prorogued  and 
went  home  to  their  constituents,  and  tlie  bat  flew  out  into 
the  night,  and  the  hzard  slunk  under  the  rocks,  and  the  go- 
rilla went  back  to  the  jungle,  and  a  hungry  wolf  passing  out 
ate  up  the  primal  germs,  and  a  clumsy  buffalo  upset  the  pro- 
toplasm, and  the  lion  went  to  his  lair,  and  the  eagle  went  to 
his  eyrie,  and  the  whale  went  to  his  palace  of  crystal  and 
coral,  and  there  was  peace — peace  in  the  air,  peace  in  the 
waters,  peace  in  the  fields.  Man  in  his  place,  the  beasts  of 
the  earth  in  their  places. 

EVOLUTION   BRUTALIZING. 

But,  my  friends,  evolution  is  not  only  infidel  and  atheistic 
and  absurd;  it  is  brutalising  in  its  tendencies.  If  there  is 
anything  in  the  world  that  will  make  a  man  bestial  in  his 
habits,  it  is  the  idea  that  he  was  descended  from  the  beast. 
Why,  according  to  the  idea  of  these  evolutionists,  we  are 
only  a  superior  kind  of  cattle,  a  sort  of  Alderney  among  other 
herds.  To  be  sure,  we  browse  on  better  pasture,  and  we 
have  better  stall  and  better  accommodations,  but  then  -we 
are  only  Southdowns  among  the  great  flocks  of  sheep. 
Born  of  a  beast,  to  die  like  a  beast ;  for  the  evolutionists 
have  no  idea  of  a  future  world.  They  say  the  mind  is  only 
a  superior  part  of  the  body.  The3^say  our  thoughts  are  only 
molecular  formation.  They  say,  Avhen  the  body  dies,  the 
whole  nature  dies.  The  slab  of  the  sepulchre  is  not  a  mile- 
stone on  a  journey  upward,  but  a  wall  shutting  us  into  eter- 
nal nothingness.  We  all  die  alike — the  cow,  the  horse,  the 
sheep,  the  man,  the  reptile.  Annihilation  is  the  heaven  of 
the  evolutionist.  From  such  a  stenchful  and  damnable  doc- 
trine, turn  away.  Compare  that  idea  of  your  origin — an  idea 
filled  with  the  chatter  of  apes,  and  the  hiss  of  serpents,  and 
the  croak  of  frogs — to  an  idea  in  one  or  two  stanzas  which  I 
shall  read  to  you  from  an  old  book  of  more  than  Demos- 
thenic, or  Homeric,  or  Dantesque  power:  "What  is  man, 
that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou 


30  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

visitcst  him?  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honor.  Thou 
madest  him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works  of  thy  hand  ; 
thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet.  All  sheep  and  oxen, 
yea,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  ;  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  the 
fish  of  the  sea,  and  whatsoever  passeth  through  the  paths  of 
the  seas.  O  Lord,  our  Lord,  how  excellent  is  Thy  name  in 
all  the  earth !" 

DESTINY   AHOVE   ORIGIN. 

How  do  you  like  that  origin  ?  The  lion  the  monarch  of 
the  field,  the  eagle  the  monarch  of  the  air,  behemoth  the 
monarch  of  the  deep,  but  man  monarch  of  all.  Ah !  my 
friends,  I  have  to  say  to  you  that  I  am  not  so  anxious  to 
know  what  was  my  origin,  as  to  know  uhat  will  be  my  des- 
tiny. I  do  not  care  so  much  where  I  came  from  as  where  I 
am  going  to.  I  am  not  so  interested  in  who  was  my  ancestry 
ten  million  years  ago,  as  I  am  to  know  where  I  will  be  ten 
million  years  from  now.  I  am  not  so  much  interested  in 
the  preface  to  my  cradle,  as  I  am  interested  in  the  appendix 
to  my  grave.  I  do  not  care  so  much  about  protoplasm  as  I 
do  about  eternasm.  The  "  was"  is  overwhelmed  with  the 
"to  be."  But  on  this  question,  Evolution  is  as  comfortless 
as  Hindoo  BraJunitiism. 

"  Where  shall  I  go  ?"  said  a  dying  Hindoo  to  the  Brahmin 
priest  to  whom  he  had  given  his  money  to  have  his  soul 
saved.  "Where  shall  I  go  after  I  die?"  asked  the  dying 
Hindoo.  "  Well,"  said  the  Brahminic  priest,  "you  will  go 
into  a  holy  quadruped."  "  But  where  shall  I  go  after  that  ?" 
said  the  dying  Hindoo.  "  Well,"  said  the  Brahminic  priest, 
"  then  you  will  go  into  a  bird."  "  But"  said  the  dying  Hin- 
doo, "  where  shall  I  go  then  ?"  "  Then  you  will  go  into  a 
beautiful  flower."  Then  the  d\ing  Hindoo  threw  up  his 
arms  and  said,  "But  where  shall  1  go  last  of  all ?''  This 
glorious  Bible  answers  'the  Hindoo's  question,  answers  my 
question,  answers  your  question — not  where  shall  I  go  to- 
day? not  where  shall  I  go  to-morrow?  or  where  shall  I  go 
next  year?  but  where  shall  I  go  last  of  all? 


EVOLUTION.  31 

And  here  comes  in  the  evolution  I  believe  in  :  not  natural 
evolution,  but  gracious  and  divine  and  heavenly  evolution 
— evolution  out  of  sin  into  holiness,  out  of  grief  into  gladness, 
out  of  mortality  into  immortality,  out  of  earth  into  heaven  ! 
That  is  the  evolution  I  believe  in. 

Evolution  from  evolverc,  to  unroll !  Unrolling  of  attri- 
butes, unrolling  of  rewards,  unrolling  of  experience,  unrolling 
of  angelic  companionship,  unrolling  of  divine  glory,  unrolling 
of  providential  obscurities,  unrolling  of  doxologies,  unrolling 
of  rainbow  to  canopy  the  throne,  unrolling  of  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth  in  which  to  dwell  righteousness.  Oh,  the 
thought  overwhelms  me!  I  have  not  the  physical  endurance 
to  consider  it. 

Monarchs  on  earth  of  all  lower  orders  of  creation,  and 
then  lifted  to  be  hierarchs  in  Heaven.  Masterpiece  of  God's 
wisdom  and  goodness,  our  humanity ;  masterpiece  of  divine 
grace,  our  enthronement.  I  put  one  foot  on  Darwin's 
''Origin  of  the  Species,"  and  I  puttheother  foot  on  Spencer's 
"  Biology,"  and  then  holding  in  one  hand  the  books  of  Moses 
I  see  our  genesis,  and  holding  in  the  other  hand  the  book 
Revelation,  I  see  our  celestial  arrival.  For  all  wars  I  pre- 
scribe the  Bethlehem  chant  of  the  angels.  For  all  sepulchres 
I  prescribe  the  archangel's  trumpet.  For  all  the  earthly 
griefs  I  prescribe  the  hand  that  wipes  away  all  tears  from  all 
eyes.  Not  an  evolution  from  beast  to  man,  but  an  evolution 
from  contestant  to  conqueror,  and  from  the  struggle  with  wild 
beasts  in  the  arena  of  the  amphitheatre,  to  a  soft,  high, 
blissful  seat  in  the  King's  galleries. 

EVOLUTION   NO   NOVELTY. 

What  is  remarkable  about  this  thing  is,  it  is  all  the  time 
developing  its  dishonesty.  In  our  day  it  is  ascribing  this 
evolution  to  Herbert  Spencer  and  Charles  Darwin.  It  is  a 
dishonesty.  Evolution  was  known  and  advocated  hundreds 
of  years  before  these  gentlemen  began  to  be  evolved.  The 
Phoenicians  thousands  of  years  ago  declared  that  the  human 
race  wobbled  out  of  the  mud.     Dcniocritus,  who  lived  460 


32  TA'UA/PET  VEALS. 

years  before  Christ — remember  that — knew  this  doctrine  of 
evolution  when  he  said  :  "  Everything  is  composed  of  atoms, 
or  infinitely  small  elements,  each  with  a  definite  quality, 
form,  and  movement,  whose  inevitable  union  and  separation 
shape  all  different  things  and  forms,  laws  and  effects,  and 
dissolve  them  again  for  new  combinations.  The  gods  them- 
selves and  the  human  mind  originated  from  such  atoms. 
There  are  no  casualties.  Everything  is  necessary  and  deter- 
mined by  the  nature  of  the  atoms,  which  have  certain  mutual 
affinities,  attractions,  and  repulsions."  Anaximaiider  cen- 
turies ago  declared  that  the  human  race  started  at  the  place 
where  the  sea  saturated  the  earth.  />?/rrr//;/i' developed,  long 
centuries  ago,  in  his  poems,  the  doctrine  of  evolution. 

It  is  an  old  heathen  corpse  set  up  in  a  morgue.  Charles 
Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer  are  trying  to  galvanize  it. 
They  drag  this  old  putrefaction  of  three  thousand  years 
around  the  earth,  boasting  that  it  is  their  originality;  and  so 
wonderful  is  the  infatuation  that  at  the  Delmonico  dinner 
given  in  honor  of  Herbert  Spencer,  there  were  those  who 
ascribed  to  him  this  great  originality  of  evolution.  There 
the  banqueters  sat  around  the  table  in  honor  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  chewing  beef,  turkey,  and  roast  pig,  which,  accord- 
ing to  their  doctrine  of  evolution,  made  them  eating  their 
own  relations ! 

There  is  only  one  thing  worse  tJian  English  snobbery,  and 
that  is  American  snobbery.  I  like  democracy  and  I  like 
aristocracy;  but  there  is  one  kind  of  ocracy  in  this  country 
that  excites  my  contempt,  and  that  is  what  Charles  Kings- 
ley,  after  he  had  witnessed  it  himself,  called  snobocracy. 
Now  I  say  it  is  a  gigantic  dishonesty  when  they  ascribe  this 
old  heathen  doctrine  of  evolution  to  any  modern  gentleman. 

People  are  also  becoming  dissatisfied  with  philosophy  and 
science  as  a  matter  of  comfort.  They  say  it  does  not  amount 
to  anything  when  you  have  a  dead  child  in  the  house.  They 
tell  you  when  they  were  sick  and  the  door  of  the  future 
seemed  opening,  the  only  comfort  they  could  finft  was  in 
the  Gospel.  People  are  having  demonstrated  all  over  the 
land  that  science  and  philosophy  cannot  solace  the  trouble 


EVOLUTION.  33 

and  woes  of  the  world,  and  they  want  some  other  rehgion, 
and  they  are  taking  Christianity,  the  only  sympathetic  reli- 
gion  that  ever  came  into  the  world. 

You  just  take  your  scientific  consolation  into  that  room 
where  a  mother  has  lost  her  child.  Try  in  that  case  your 
splendid  doctrine  of  the  ''  sjirvival  of  the  fittest."  Tell  her 
that  child  died  because  it  was  not  worth  as  much  as  the 
other  children.  That  is  your  "  survival  of  the  fittest."  Just 
try  your  transcendentalism  and  your  philosophy  and  your 
science  on  that  widowed  soul,  and  tell  her  it  was  a  geological 
necessity  that  her  companion  should  be  taken  away  from 
her,  just  as  in  the  course  of  the  world's  history  the  mega- 
therium had  to  pass  out  of  existence;  and  then  you  go  on 
in  your  scientific  consolation  until  you  get  to  the  sublime 
fact  that  fifty  million  years  from  now  we  ourselves  may  be 
scientific  specimens  on  a  geological  shelf,  petrified  specimens 
of  an  extinct  human  race.  And  after  you  have  got  all 
through  with  your  consolation,  if  the  poor  afflicted  soul  is 
not  crazed  by  it,  I  will  send  forth  from  this  church  the  plain- 
est Christian  we  have,  and  with  one  half-hour  of  prayer  and 
reading  of  Scripture  promises,  the  tears  will  be  wiped  away, 
and  the  house  from  floor  to  cupola  will  be  flooded  with  the 
calmness  of  an  Indian  summer  sunset.  There  is  where  I  see 
the  triumph  of  Christianity.  People  are  dissatisfied  with 
everything  else.     They  want  God.     They  want  Jesus  Christ. 

EVOLUTION   FOR  A   WRECK. 

What  is  that  in  the  ofifing?  A  ship  gone  on  the  rocks 
at  Cape  Hatteras.  The  hulk  is  breaking  up,  crew  and  pas- 
sengers are  drowning.  The  storm  is  in  full  blast  and  the 
barometer  is  still  sinking.  What  does  that  ship  want? 
Development.  Develop  her  broken  masts.  Develop  her 
broken  rudder.  Develop  her  drowning  crew.  Develop  her 
freezing  passengers.  Develop  the  whole  ship.  That  is  all 
it  wants.  Development.  O  !  I  make  a  mistake.  What  that 
ship  wants  is  a  lifeboat  from  the  shore.  Leap  into  it,  you 
men  of  the  life-station.     Pull  away  to  the  wreck.     Steady 


34  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

there  !  Bring  the  women  and  children  first  to  the  shore. 
Now  the  stout  men.  Wrap  them  up  in  flannels,  kindle  a 
crackling  and  roaring  fire  until  the  frozen  limbs  are  thawed 
out,  and  between  their  chattering  teeth  you  can  pour  restora- 
tion. 

Well,  my  friends,  our  world  is  on  the  rocks.  God  launched 
it  well  enough,  but  through  mis-pilotage  and  the  storms  of 
six  thousand  years  it  has  gone  into  the  breakers.  What 
does  this  old  ship  of  a  world  want ?  Development!  Enough 
old  evolution  in  the  hulk  to  evolve  another  mast  and  another 
rudder,  to  evolve  all  the  passengers  and  evolve  the  ship  out 
of  the  breakers.  Development !  Ah  !  no,  my  friends,  what 
this  old  shipwreck  of  a  world  wants  is  a  lifeboat  from  the 
shore.  And  it  is  coming.  Cheer,  my  lads,  cheer.  It  is 
coming  from  the  shining  shore  of  heaven,  taking  the  crests 
of  ten  waves  with  one  sweep  of  the  shining  paddles.  Christ 
is  in  the  lifeboat.  Many  wounds  on  hands  and  feet  and  side 
and  brow,  showing  He  has  been  long  engaged  in  the  work 
of  rescue,  but  yet  mighty  to  save — to  save  one,  to  save  all, 
to  save  forever.  My  Lord  and  my  God,  get  us  into  the  life- 
boat I     Give  us  God,  Christ,  and  the  Bible. 


CHAPTER   III. 
Ingersollian  Infidelity  Confuted. 

"  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God." — Psalm  53 :  i. 

No  one  but  a  fool  would  say  so,  and  he  would  not  say  it 
with  his  head,  for  it  does  not  require  any  especial  brain  to 
see  a  design  in  all  things,  and  hence  a  designer.  But  the 
heart,  the  wicked  heart,  the  proud  heart,  is  hurt  at  such  a 
pure  and  overtowering  existence. 

Were  there  any  prospect  of  success,  and  an  army  were 
organized  to  dethrone  God,  or  drive  Him  off  the  edges  of 
existence,  the  first  division  of  the  army  would  be  made  up 
of  infidels,  and  Mr.  Robert  Ingersoll,  the  champion  blas- 
phemer of  America,  would  be  the  colonel  of  one  of  the  regi- 
ments. When  the  world  slew  Jesus  Christ,  it  showed  what 
it  would  do  with  the  eternal  God  if  it  could  get  its  hands  on 
Him. 

Prove  a  benevolent  God  and  you  prove  a  Bible.  You 
cannot  think  of  a  good  God  not  giving  a  revelation  to  His 
children.     Atheism  and  infidelity  are  twin  brothers. 

BIG   BUSINESS   ON   SMALL   CAPITAL. 

The  war  against  the  Bible  and  against  God  is  no  new 
thing.  Mr.  Ingersoll  is  only  dealing  in  the  second-hand  fur- 
niture of  Paine,  and  Volney,  and  Hobbes,  and  Voltaire,  and 
Colenso,  save  when  he  quotes  from  himself,  and  the  most  of 
his  lectures  are  about  one  thing.  It  does  not  make  any  dif- 
ference whether  he  calls  it  the  Mistakes  of  Moses,  or  Skulls, 
or  the  Liberty  of  Man,  woman,  and  child,  or  no  name  at  all, 
it  is  the  same  lecture.  There  never  was  a  man  who  carried 
on  so  large  a  business  on  such  a  small  capital,  and  that  bor- 
rowed capital. 

35 


36  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

lie  picks  up  one  boiic  from  Adam's  skeleton,  and  he 
runs  with  that  bone  through  all  his  lectures,  and  it  happens 
to  be  a  rib,  and  the  rib  that  was  said  to  be  the  nucleus  for 
the  womanly  creation  ;  and  he  sharpens  that  rib,  and  he 
flourishes  it,  and  he  gnaws  on  it,  and  gnaws  on  it,  and  he 
holds  on  to  it,  as  my  greyhound  for  six  months  used  to 
spend  all  his  spare  time  in  gnawing  on  a  bleached  and  juice- 
less  bone  when  he  had  plenty  of  good  food  offered  him. 
Coming  suddenly  on  him  in  the  morning,  I  would  find  him 
gnawing  that  bone,  though  the  day  before  I  had  thrown  it 
over  the  fence,  and  he  would  keep  on  gnawing  it,  and  look 
up  to  me  as  much  as  to  say  :  "  Sir,  you  don't  know  how 
much  I  am  dependent  for  happiness  upon  this  bone ;  I  am 
an  infidel."  People  coming  late  to  Mr.  IngersoU's  lecture 
inquire  of  the  janitor  whether  he  has  got  to  Adam's  rib  yet. 

I  must,  at  the  risk  of  spoiling  Mr.  IngersoU's  favorite  joke 
and  raising  a  snarl,  snatch  from  him  his  favorite  bone,  while 
I  tell  you  that  there  was 

NO   ABSURDITY    IX    WOMAN'S   CREATION. 

The  word  translated  "  rib"  is  a  general  word  meaning 
side.  Stupendous  ignorance  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Ingersoll 
that  he  does  not  know  that  the  word  here  translated  "  rib" 
simply  means  side.  That  man,  without  knowing  a  word  or  a 
letter  of  Hebrew,  proposes  to  expound  Genesis.  As  well 
might  a  man  expound  Sophocles,  not  knowing  a  word  of 
Greek  or  Horace,  not  knowing  a  word  of  Latin  or  Richter, 
not  knowing  a  word  of  German  or  William  Shakespeare,  not 
knowing  a  word  of  English.  From  his  side  !  How  an}-  man 
who  has  a  good  wife  can  find  derision  in  the  nearness  and 
the  solemnity  of  the  relation  there  suggested,  I  cannot  un- 
derstand. 

I  will  not  quote  Matthew  Henry's  over-quoted  theory 
about  woman's  being  taken  from  the  left  side,  and^iear  the 
door  of  the  heart.  I  think  she  was  taken  from  the  right  side 
and  under  the  right  arm,  suggestive  that  he  was  to  fight  her 
battles  for  her,  and  be  her  unfailing  defence,  and  strike  down 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY   CONFUTED.  3/ 

her  assailants,  and  avenge  her  honor.  That  is  what  fills  a 
man  with  indignation  unbounded,  and  makes  him  livid  with 
rage,  when  you  say  anything  against  his  wife.  You  may 
abuse  him,  you  may  cheat  him,  you  may  defraud  him,  you 
may  assault  him,  and  he  will  forgive  you  ;  but  you  say  any- 
thing against  his  wife,  and  you  better  stand  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  right  arm.  From  his  side  !  From  his  side,  that  they 
might  walk  the  path  of  life  together.  From  his  side,  that 
when  she  steps  in  the  deep  wave  of  trouble  he  may  hold 
her  up.  From  his  side,  that  when  they  stand  by  the  little 
grave  he  may  say  to  her,  "  Don't  cry,  we'll  get  our  darling 
back  again  in  the  resurrection."  From  his  side, — his  equal, 
his  joy,  his  pride,  his  exultation,  his  care,'his  angehc  ministry. 
To  him  the  best  being  in  all  the  earth.  From  his  side  !  Oh, 
the  tenderness,  and  the  pathos,  and  the  beauty,  and  the  sub- 
limity of  the  Mosaic  account ! 


MAKING   MOUTHS. 
"  They  have  set  their  mouth  against  the  heavens." — Psalm  73  :  9, 

This  is  a  full-length  portrait  of  a  blasphemer.  As  a  wolf 
howls  at  the  sky,  or  a  dog  bays  at  the  moon,  so  the  blas- 
phemer is  represented  as  making  mouths  at  the  heavens ; 
and  on  the  night  when  the  wolf  shall  frighten  away  the  sky, 
and  the  dog  shall  stop  the  moon,  that  night  will  the  blas- 
phemer drive  away  the  God  of  the  Bible. 

[The  laugh  returned.     See  Psalm  2  :  4. — Ed.] 

FOOTPRINTS   OF  DEITY. 

An  Arab  guide  was  leading  a  French  infidel  across  a  des- 
ert, and  ever  and  anon  the  Arab  guide  would  get  down  in 
the  sand  and  pray  to  the  Lord.  It  disgusted  the  French  in- 
fidel, and  after  a  while  as  the  Arab  got  up  from  one  of  his 
prayers  the  infidel  said  :  "  How  do  you  know  there  is  any 
God  ?"  and  the  Arab  guide  said  :  "  How  do  I  know  that  a 
man  and  a  camel  passed  along  by  our  tent  last  night  ?  I  know 


38  TRUMPET  PF.AI.S. 

it  by  the  footprint  in  the  sand.  And  you  want  to  know  how 
I  know  whether  there  is  any  God.  Look  at  that  sunset.  Is 
that  the  footstep  of  a  man?"  And  by  the  same  process  you 
and  I  have  come  to  understand  that  this  is  the  footstep  of  a 
God. 


BLASniEMOUS   TROGRAMME. 

It  seems  from  what  7<:r  have  heard  that  Bible  reh'gion  is 
a  huge  blunder;  that  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  is 
an  absurdity  large  enough  to  throw  all  nations  into  rollick- 
ing guffaw ;  that  Adam  and  Eve  never  existed ;  that  the 
ancient  flood  and  Noah's  Ark  were  impossibilities  ;  that  there 
never  was  a  miracle ;  that  the  Bible  is  the  friend  of  cruelty, 
of  murder,  of  polygamy,  of  obscenity,  of  adultery,  of  all  forms 
of  base  crime  ;  that  the  Christian  religion  is  woman's  tyrant 
and  man's  stultification  ;  that  the  Bible  from  h'd  to  lid  is  a 
fable,  an  obscenity,  a  cruelty,  a  humbug,  a  sham,  a  lie;  that 
the  martyrs  who  died  for  its  truth  were  miserable  dupes; 
that  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  is  properly  gazetted  as  a 
fool ;  that  it  is  something  to  bring  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of 
every  patriot  that  John  Adams,  the  father  of  American  in- 
dependence, declared  "  the  Bible  is  the  best  book  in  all  the 
world ;"  and  that  iron,  lion-hearted  Andrew  Jackson  turned 
into  a  snivelling  coward  when  he  said,  "  That  book,  sir,  is  the 
rock  on  which  our  republic  rests ;"  and  that  Daniel  Webster 
abdicated  the  throne  of  his  intellectual  power  and  resigned 
his  logic,  and,  from  being  the  great  expounder  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  great  lawyer  of  his  age,  turned  into  an  idiot 
when  he  said  :  "  My  heart  assures  and  reassures  me  that  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  divine  reality.  From  the 
time  that,  at  my  mother's  feet  or  on  my  father's  knee,  I  first 
learned  to  lisp  verses  from  the  sacred  writings,  they  have  been 
my  daily  study  and  vigilant  contemplation,  and  if  there  is 
anything  in  my  style  or  thought  to  be  commended,  the  credit 
is  due  to  my  kind  parents,  in  instilling  into  my  mind  an  early 
love  of  the  Scriptures;"  and  that  William  H,  Sc'ivar(1,\\\t^ 
diplomatist  of  the  century,  onl\'  showed  his  puerilit\'  when 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  39 

he  declared,  "  The  whole  hope  of  human  progress  is  suspended 
on  the  ever-growing  influences  of  the  Bible  ;"  and  that  it  is 
wisest  for  us  to  take  that  Book  from  the  throne  in  the  affec- 
tions of  uncounted  multitudes,  and  put  it  under  our  feet  to 
be  trampled  upon  by  hatred  and  hissing  contempt ;  and  that 
your  old  father  was  hoodwinked  and  cajoled  and  cheated 
and  befooled  when  he  leaned  on  this  as  a  staff  after  his  hair 
grew  gray  and  his  hands  were  tremulous  and  his  steps  short- 
ened as  he  came  up  to  the  verge  of  the  grave  ;  and  that  your 
mother  sat  with  a  pack  of  lies  on  her  lap  while  reading  of 
the  better  country,  and  of  the  ending  of  all  her  aches  and 
pains,  and  reunion,  not  only  with  those  of  you  who  stood 
around  her,  but  with  the  children  she  had  buried  with  infi- 
nite heartache,  so  that  she  could  read  no  more  until  she  took 
off  her  spectacles  and  wiped  from  them  the  heavy  mist  of 
many  tears. 

Alas !  that  for  forty  and  fifty  years  they  should  have 
walked  under  this  delusion,  and  had  it  under  their  pillow 
when  they  lay  a-dying  in  the  back  room,  and  asked  that  some 
words  from  the  vile  page  might  be  cut  upon  the  tombstone 
under  the  shadow  of  the  old  country  meeting-house  where 
they  sleep  this  morning  waiting  for  a  resurrection  that  will 
never  come.  This  Book,  having  deceived  them,  and  having 
deceived  the  mighty  intellects  of  the  past,  must  not  be  al- 
lowed to  deceive  our  larger,  mightier,  vaster,  more  stupen- 
dous intellects. 

Well,  we  will  give  it  a  trial.  I  empannel  you  as  a  jury 
to  render  your  verdict  in  this  case.  And  I  ask  you  to  afifirm 
that  you  will  well  and  truly  try  this  issue  of  traverse  joined 
between  Infidelity,  the  plaintiff,  and  Christianity,  the  de- 
fendant, so  help  you  God. 

ROBERT   INGERSOLL'S   TESTIMONY. 

The  jury  empannelled,  call  your  first  witness.  Robert 
G.  Ingersoll !  "  Here  !"  Swear  the  witness.  But  how  are 
you  to  swear  the  witness?  I  know  of  only  two  ways  of  tak- 
ing an  oath  in  a  court-room.     The  one  is  by  kissing  the  Bible, 


40  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  the  other  is  by  lifting  the  hand.  I  cannot  ask  him  to 
swear  by  the  Bible,  because  he  considers  that  a  pack  of  lies, 
and  therefore  it  could  give  no  solemnity  to  his  oath.  I  can- 
not ask  him  to  lift  the  hand,  for  that  seems  to  imply  the  ex- 
istence of  a  God,  and  that  is  a  fact  in  dispute.  So  I  swear 
him  by  the  rings  of  Saturn,  and  the  spots  on  the  sun,  and 
the  caverns  in  the  moon,  and  the  Milky  Way,  and  the  nebu- 
lar hypothesis,  that  he  will  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth  in  this  case  between  Infidelity,  the 
plaintiff,  and  Christianity,  the  defendant. 

Let  mc  say  that  I  know  nothing  of  the  private  character 
of  that  person,  neither  do  I  want  to  know.  I  have  no  taste 
for  exploring  private  character.  I  shall  deal  with  him  as  a 
public  teacher. 

You  say :  Why  answer  the  champion  blasphemer  of  Amer- 
ica? Am  I  afraid  that  Christianity  will  be  overborne  by  his 
scoffing  harlequinade?  Oh  no.  Do  you  know  how  near 
he  has  come  to  stopping  Christianity?  I  will  tell  you  how 
near  he  has  come  to  impeding  the  progress  of  Christianity 
in  the  world.  About  as  much  as  one  snowflake  on  the  track 
will  impede  the  half-past  three  o'clock  Chicago  lightning  ex- 
press train.  Perhaps  not  so  much  as  that.  It  is  more  like 
a  Switzerland  insect  floating  through  the  air  impeding  an 
Alpine  avalanche. 

Within  ten  years  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  done  his  most  con- 
spicuous stopping  of  Christianity,  and  he  has  stopped  it  at 
the  following  rate.  In  the  first  fifty  years  of  this  century 
there  were  three  million  people  who  professed  the  faith  of 
Christ.  In  the  last  ten  years  there  have  been  three  million 
people  connecting  themselves  by  profession  with  the  Church 
of  Christ.  In  otiier  words,  the  last  ten  years  have  accom- 
plished as  much  as  the  first  fifty  years  of  this  century. 

My  fear  is  not  that  he  will  arrest  Christianity.  I  answer 
his  charges  for  the  benefit  of  individuals.  There  are  young 
men  who  through  his  teachings  have  given  up  their  religion 
and  soon  after  gave  up  their  morals.  TngersoU's  teachings 
triumphant  would  fill  all  the  penitentiaries  and  the  gam- 
blinc-hells  and  houses  of  shame  on   the  continent — on   the 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  4 1 

planet.  No  divine  system  of  morals,  and  in  twenty  years  we 
would  have  a  hell  on  earth  eclijDsing  in  abomination  the  hell 
that  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  so  much  laughed  at. 

My  fear  is  not  that  Christianity  in  general  shall  be  im- 
peded, but  I  want  to  persuade  these  young  men  to  get 
aboard  the  train  instead  of  throwing  themselves  across  the 
track. 

So  let  the  trial  come  on.  The  jury  has  been  empanelled. 
The  first  witness  has  been  called. 

MR.   INGERSOLL'S   CHARGES. 

Now,  my  friends,  it  is  a  principle  settled  in  all  court- 
rooms, and  among  all  intelligent  people,  "■false  in  part,  false 
in  ally  If  a  witness  is  found  to  be  making  a  misrepresenta- 
tion on  the  stand,  it  does  not  make  any  difference  what  he 
testifies  to  afterward  ;  it  all  goes  overboard.  The  judge,  the 
jury,  every  common-sense  man  says  "  false  in  part,  false  in 
all."  Now,  if  I  can  show  you,  and  I  will  show  you,  the 
Lord  helping  me,  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  makes  misrepresenta 
tions  in  one  respect,  or  two  respects,  or  three  respects,  I  de- 
mand that,  as  intelligent  men  and  as  fair-minded  women, 
you  throw  overboard  his  entire  testimony.  If  he  misrepre- 
sent in  one  thing,  he  will  misrepresent  all  the  way  through. 
*'  False  in  one,  false  in  all." 

IS   THIS   BOOK   TRUE? 

In  the  first  place,  he  raises  a  roystering  laugh  against  the 
Bible  by  saying  :  "  Is  this  book  true  ?  The  gentleman  who 
wrote  it  said  that  the  world  was  made  out  of  nothing.  I 
cannot  imagine  nothing  being  made  into  soinetJiing!'  In 
nearly  all  his  lectures  he  begins  with  that  gigantic  misrepre- 
sentation. 

Refer  to  your  memory  that  you  may  see  it  is  an  Ingersol- 
lian  misstatement — a  misstatement  from  stem  to  stern,  and 
from  cutwater  to  taffrail,  and  from  the  top  of  the  mainmast 
down  to  the  barnacles   on    the    bottom.     If  he  had   taken 


42  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

some  obscure  passage,  lie  would  not  have  been  so  soon  found 
out;  but  he  has  taken  the  most  conspicuous,  the  most 
memorable,  the  most  magnificent  passage,  all  geological  and 
astronomical  discovery  only  adding  to  its  grandeur.  "  In 
the  beginning." 

There  you  can  roll  in  ten  million  years  if  you  want  to. 
There  is  no  particular  date  given — no  contest  between  sci- 
ence and  revelation.  Though  the  world  may  have  been  in 
process  of  creation  for  millions  of  years,  suddenly  and 
quickly,  and  in  one  week,  it  may  have  been  fitted  up  for 
Dians  residence.  There  is  as  much  difference  between  Mr. 
Ingersoll's  statement  and  the  truth  as  between  nothing  and 
omnipotence. 

CREATION   OF   LIGHT. 

I  take  a  step  further  in  the  impeachment  of  this  witness. 
He  swoops  upon  the  third  and  fourth  verses  of  the  same 
chapter  in  caricature  and  says :  **  Ha,  ha  !  the  Bible  repre- 
sents that  light  was  created  on  Monday,  and  the  sun  was 
not  created  until  Thursday.  Just  think  of  it !  a  book  de- 
claring that  light  was  created  three  days  before  the  sun 
shone  !"  Here  Mr.  IngersoU  shows  his  geological  and 
chemical  and  astronomical  ignorance.  If  Mr.  IngersoU  had 
asked  any  schoolboy  on  his  way  home  from  one  of  our  high 
schools :  "  My  lad,  can  there  be  any  light  without  the  shin- 
ing of  the  sun  ?"  the  lad  would  have  said:  "  Yes,  sir  ;  Jieat 
and  electricity  emit  light  independent  of  the  sun.  Beside 
that,  when  the  earth  was  in  process  of  condensation,  it  was 
surrounded  by  thick  vapors  and  the  discharge  of  many  vol- 
canoes in  the  primary  period,  and  all  this  obscuration  may 
have  hindered  the  light  of  the  sun  from  falling  on  the  earth 
until  that  Thursday  morning." 

Mr.  IngersoU  has  only  to  go  to  one  of  our  high  schools 
to  learn  there  are  ten  thousand  sources  of  light  besides  the 
light  of  the  sun.  But  whether  wilful  or  ignorant  misrepre- 
sentation, either  or  both  will  impeach  Robert  G.  IngersoU  as 
incompetent  to  give  testimony  in  this  case  between  Infidel- 
ity and  Christianity. 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  43 


THE   FIRMAMENT. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  goes  on  to  say  that  when  Moses  spoke  of 
God  as  creating  the  firmament,  he  showed  his  ignorance,  for 
he  thereby  implied  that  the  heaven,  the  sky,  was  a  soHd  af- 
fair, and  he  knew  nothing  about  evaporation.  Wise  Inger- 
soll !  Ignorant  Moses  !  But  Noah  Webster,  and  indeed  all 
the  lexicographers,  agree  in  saying  that  the  word  firmament 
used  in  the  Bible,  instead  of  meaning  a  solidity,  means  an 
expanse — instead  of  representing  a  metallic  roof,  it  means  a 
scretching  out  and  an  extension. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  goes  on  laughing  at  the  statement,  and 
says  that  the  stars  are  represented  by  Moses  as  being  fast- 
ened to  this  solid  roof,  and  that  he  shows  'he  knew  nothing 
about  astronomy  because  all  reference  made  to  other  worlds 
is  in  five  words :  "  He  made  the  stars  also.  '  And  Mr.  In- 
gersoll says  therefore,  it  is  evident  that  Moses  was  very  igno- 
rant and  thought  the  other  worlds  were  very  small  or  a  mere 
nothing,  while  this  world  was  very  great,  when  they  are  so 
much  larger  than  this.  "  He  made  the  stars  also."  My 
friends,  Moses  did  not  write  Genesis  because  he  wanted  to 
teach  us  astronomy  any  more  than  he  wanted  to  teach  us  bot- 
any, or  chemistry,  or  anatomy,  or  physiology,  or  any  other 
modern  science.  His  only  idea  was  to  give  us  the  origin 
and  the  outfit  of  the  world. 

Had  the  book  gone  into  all  these  particulars,  all  the 
other  sciences,  fifty  thousand  volumes  would  not  have  con- 
tained the  record,  and  sacred  literature  would  have  been 
cumbrous  and  unmanageable. 

But  we  see  again  and  again  indicated  in  this  book  that 
these  Bible  writers,  instead  of  being  ignoramuses,  as  Mr.  In- 
gersoll represents  them,  really  knew  a  great  deal  more  than 
many  people  who  in  this  time  deride  them.  Ages,  thousands 
of  years,  passed  along  before  the  world  found  out  the  law  of 
condensation  and  evaporation ;  but  Job  knev/  it.  He  de- 
scribed the  process  when  he  said :  "  He  maketh  small  the 
drops  of  water  ;  they  pour  out  according  to  the  vapor  there- 


44  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

of."  In  other  words,  it  took  the  world  thousands  of  years 
to  find  out  what  Job  knew  thousands  of  years  before.  Yox 
thousands  of  years  people  thought  that  the  light  of  the  sun 
came  straight  to  our  earth,  and  the  law  of  refraction  or  the 
bending  of  the  rays  to  the  earth,  is  comparatively  a  modern 
discovery  ;  but  Job  knew  it.  He  says  of  the  sunlight :  "  It 
is  turned  as  clay  to  the  seal."  The  world  struggling  thou- 
sands of  years  to  find  out  what  Job  knew  at  the  start.  "  It 
is  turned  as  clay  to  the  seal." 

Astronomers  thought  that  they  made  a  great  jdiscovery 
when  they  found  out  that  the  world,  instead  of  being  station- 
ary, was  in  motion  ;  but  Isaiah  knew  it,  and  thousands  of  years 
before  had  spoken  of  the  orbit  of  the  earth,  the  circle  of  the 
earth,  indicating  that  it  had  a  path  through  the  heavens. 
For  thousands  of  years  it  was  thought  that  the  earth  was 
built  on  some  solid  foundation.  Isaiah  knew^  better:  "He 
hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing."  Long  before  Maury  dis- 
covered the  revolution  of  the  wind-currents,  and  the  law  of 
the  trade  winds,  the  Bible  describes  it :  "  The  wind  goeth 
toward  the  south,  and  turneth  about  unto  the  north  ;  it 
whirleth  about  continually,  and  the  wind  returneth  again 
according  to  his  circuits."  So  that  while  we  called  General 
Mycr  "Old  Probabilities,"  Job  was  the  first  ''Old  Probabil- 
ities.'" He  described  the  currents  of  the  air  which,  after 
struggling  and  struggling  and  struggling  for  thousands  of 
years,  were  found  out  by  philosophers. 

Ages  passed  along  before  the  world  knew  anything  about 
physiology ;  but  Solomon  speaks  of  the  spinal  cord  as  the 
silver  cord;  and  thousands  of  years  before  Harvey  found  out 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  Solomon  described  it  under  a 
figure  as  the  pitcher  at  the  fountain,  the  pitcher  carrying  the 
crimson  liquid  up  through  the  temple  of  the  body.  James 
Watt  thought  he  was  making  a  wonderful  invention  when 
he  applied  steam  to  the  rail-carriage  ;  but  thousands  of  j-cars 
before,  the  prophet  Nahum  had  described  the  lightning  ex- 
press train  at  night,  and  the  jamming  of  the  car-coupling: 
"The  chariots  shall  rage  in  the  streets,  they  shall  jostle  one 
against  another  in   the   broad  ways ;  they  shall    seem    like 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  45 

torches,  they  shall  run  like  the  lightnings."  Professor  Morse 
thought  that  he  was  making  a  wonderful  invention  when  he 
found  out  the  magnetic  telegraph  ;  but  Job  describes  elec- 
trical communication  thousands  of  years  before,  when  he 
says :  "  Canst  thou  send  lightnings,  that  they  may  go  and 
say  unto  thee.  Here  we  are?" 

By  the  Leyden  jar,  the  voltaic  pile,  the  magnetic  battery, 
the  microscope,  the  telescope,  and  all  philosophic  apparatus 
toiling  on  and  on  and  on  until  at  last,  at  last,  Silliman  and 
Agassiz  and  Joseph  Henry  and  Dr.  Draper  have  actually 
caught  up  to  antiquated  Job  and  old  Moses  !  Yet  Mr.  Inger- 
soll  says  they  were  ignorant.  Moses  knew  nothing  about 
astronomy  and  thought  the  sky  was  just  a  solid  roof  and 
that  the  stars  were  mere  adornments  hung  up  against  it, 
because  he  says,  "  He  made  the  stars  also!  " 

THE   BIBLE   UNSCIENTIFIC. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  vehemently  charge  the 
Bible  with  being  an  unscientific  book.  But  who  are  those 
that  say  there  is  a  collision  between  science  and  revelation  ? 
Well,  Herbert  Spencer,  Tyndall,  Darwin,  Ingersoll.  They 
say  there  is  a  discord  between  science  and  revelation  ;  but  I 
will  bring  you  names  of  men  who  have  found  a  perfect  accord 
between  science  and  revelation— men  as  much  higher  in 
intellectual  character  above  those  w^hom  I  have  mentioned 
as  the  Alps  and  Mount  Washington  and  the  Himalayas  are 
higher  than  Ridgewood  Water-works :  Herschel,  Kepler, 
Leibnitz,  Ross,  Isaac  Newton.  My  friends,  we  are  in  respec- 
table company  when  we  believe  in  the  Word  of  God — very 
respectable  company. 

Did  you  ever  hear  General  Mitchell  or  Dr.  Doremus 
lecture  on  the  harmony  between  Science  and  Revelation  ? 
Science  is  a  boy.  Revelation  a  man.  The  boy  thinks  he 
knows  more  than  the  man,  and  asks  many  unanswered  ques- 
tions. 

In  the  temple  of  Nature  there  are  Hvo  orchestras — the  or- 
chestra of   revelation,  and  the  orchestra   of  science.     The 


4^  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

orchestra  of  revelation  lias  all  the  musical  instruments  full 
strung,  and  it  is  ready  for  the  burst  of  eternal  accord.  The 
orchestra  of  science  is  only  just  stringing  the  instruments. 
If  you  will  only  wait  long  enough,  )'ou  will  find  that  it  is  as 
in  the  old  German  cathedrals  where  they  have  an  organ  at 
one  end  of  the  building,  and  an  organ  at  the  other  end  of 
the  building,  both  responding  to  each  other,  and  making 
mighty  music.  So  it  will  be  in  the  temple  of  the  universe  : 
the  orchestra  of  revelation  and  the  orchestra  of  science  will 
respond  to  each  other  after  a  while,  and  it  will  be  found  that 
the  roar  of  the  ocean  is  only  the  magnificent  bass  of  the 
temple  voices,  and  that  the  earth  is  only  the  pedals  of  a 
great  organ  of  which  the  heavens  are  the  key-board. 

There  is  no  contest  between  genuine  science  and  revela- 
tion. The  same  God  who  by  the  hand  of  propliet  wrote  on 
parchment,  by  the  hand  of  the  storm  wrote  on  the  rock.  The 
best  telescopes  and  microscopes  and  electric  batteries  and 
philosophical  apparatus  belong  to  Christian  universities. 
Who  gave  us  magnetic  telegraphy?  Professor  Morse,  a  Chris- 
tian. Who  swung  the  lightnings  under  the  sea,  cabling  the 
continents  together  ?     Cyrus  W.  Field,  the  Christian. 

James  V.  Simpson,  of  Edinburgh,  as  eminent  for  piety  as 
for  science,  on  week-days  in  the  University  lectures  on  pro- 
foundest  scientific  subjects,  and  on  Sabbaths  preaches  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

THE   DELUGE. 

I  take  a  step  further  in  impeaching  this  witness  against 
the  Bible.  He  sharpens  all  his  witticisms  to  destroy  our 
belief  in  the  ancient  Deluge  and  Noah's  Ark.  He  says  that 
from  the  account  there,  it  must  have  rained  eight  hundred 
feet  of  water  each  day  in  order  that  it  might  be  fifteen  cubits 
above  the  hills.  He  says  that  the  Ark  could  not  have  been 
large  enough  to  contain  "two  of  every  sort,"  for  there  would 
have  been  hundreds  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  creatures!  He  says  that  these  creatures  wouUl  have 
came  from  all  lands  and  all  zones !     He  sa)s  there  was  only 


INGEKSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY   CONFUTED.  4/ 

one  small  window  In  the  Ark  and  that  would  not  have  given 
fresh  air  to  keep  the  animals  inside  the  Ark  from  suffocation  ! 
Then  he  winds  up  that  part  of  the  story  by  saying  that  the 
Ark  finally  landed  on  a  mountain  seventeen  thousand  feet 
high. 

He  says  he  does  not  believe  the  story.  Neither  do  I. 
There  is  no  such  story  in  the  Bible.  I  will  tell  you  what  the 
Bible  story  is. 

Why  did  the  Deluge  come  ?  It  came  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  the  outrageous  inhabitants  of  the  then  thinly 
populated  earth,  nearly  all  the  population  probably  very  near 
the  Ark  before  it  was  launched.  What  would  have  been  the 
use  of  submerging  North  and  South  America,  or  Europe,  or 
Africa,  when  they  were  not  inhabited  ? 

God  speaks  after  the  manner  of  men  when  He  says  every- 
thing went  under.  And  Mr.  Ingersoll  most  grossly  misrep- 
resents when  he  says  that,  in  order  to  have  that  depth  of 
water,  it  must  have  rained  eight  hundred  feet  every  day. 
The  Bible  distinctly  declares  that  the  most  of  the  flood  rose 
instead  of  falling.  Before  the  account  where  it  says  "  the 
windows  of  heaven  were  opened,"  it  says  "all  the  fountains 
of  the  great  deep  were  broken  up."  All  geologists  agree  in 
saying  that  there  are  caverns  in  the  earth  filled  with  water, 
and  they  rushed  forth,  and  all  the  lakes  and  rivers  forsook 
their  beds. 

What  am  I  to  think,  and  what  are  you  to  think,  of  a  man 
who,  ignoring  this  earthquake  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  as  pre- 
ceding the  falling  of  the  rain,  and  for  the  purpose  of  making 
a  laugh  at  the  Bible,  will  say  it  must  have  rained  over  eight 
hundred  feet  every  day? — taking  the  last  half  instead  of  the 
first  half.  The  fountains  of  the  great  deep  were  broken  up, 
and  then  the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened. 

THE  SIZE   OF   THE   ARK. 

Instead  of  being  a  mud-scow,  as  some  of  these  infidels 
would  have  us  understand,  it  was  a  magnificent  ship,  nearly 
as  large  as  our  Great  Eastern,  three  times  the  size  of  an  ordi- 
nary man-of-war. 


48  TKUMPET  PEALS. 

Well,  the  animal  creation  going  into  this  ark  were  the 
animals  from  that  region,  where  alone  inhabitants  were  to 
be  found  ;  and  they  went  in  two  and  two  of  all  flesh. 

Two  or  three  years  ago  I  was  on  a  steamer  on  the  river 
Tay,  and  I  came  to  Perth,  Scotland.  I  got  off  and  saw  tJic 
most  zc'onderfiil  agriatltural  shozo  that  I  had  ever  witnessed. 
There  were  horses  and  cattle  such  as  Rosa  Bonheur  never 
sketched,  and  there  were  dogs  such  as  the  loving  pencil  of 
Edwin  Landseer  never  portrayed,  and  there  were  sheep  and 
fowl  and  creatures  of  all  sorts.  Suppose  that  "  two  and 
two"  of  all  the  creatures  of  that  agricultural  show  were  put 
upon  the  Tay  steamer  to  be  transported  to  Dundee,  and  the 
next  day  I  should  be  writing  home  to  America  and  giving 
an  account  of  the  occurrence,  I  would  have  used  the  same 
general  phraseology  that  is  used  in  regard  to  the  embarka- 
tion of  the  brute  creation  in  the  ark — I  would  have  said  that 
they  went  in  two  and  two  of  every  sort.  I  would  not  have 
meant  six  hundred  thousand.  A  common-sense  man  myself, 
I  would  suppose  that  the  people  who  read  the  letter  were 
common-sense  people. 

"But  how  could  you  get  them  into  the  ark  ?"  says  Mr. 
Ingersoll,  with  a  great  sneer.  "  How^  could  they  be  induced 
to  go  into  the  ark?  He  would  have  to  pick  them  out  and 
drive  them  in,  and  coax  them  in."  Could  not  the  same  God 
who  gave  instinct  to  the  animal  inspire  that  instinct  to  seek 
for  shelter  from  the  storm  ?  However,  nothing  more  than 
ordinary  animal  instinct  was  necessary.  Have  you  never 
been  in  the  country  when  an  August  thunder-storm  was 
coming  up,  and  heard  the  cattle  moan  at  the  bars  to  get  in, 
and  seen  the  affrighted  fowl  go  upon  the  perch  at  noonday, 
and  heard  the  affrighted  dog  and  cat  calling  at  the  door, 
supplicating  entrance?  And  are  you  surprised  that,  in  that 
age  of  the  world,  when  there  were  fewer  places  of  shelter  for 
dumb  beasts,  at  the  muttering  and  rumbling  and  flashing 
and  quaking  and  darkening  of  an  approaching  deluge,  the 
animal  creation  came  moaning  and  bleating  to  the  sloping 
embankment  reaching  up  to  the  ancient  Great  Eastern,  and 
passed  in  ?     I  have  owned  horses  and  cattle  and  sheep  and 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  49 

dogs,  but  I  never  had  a  horse  or  a  cow  or  a  sheep  or  a  dog 
that  was  so  stupid  it  did  not  kiioiv  enough  to  come  in  ivhen  it 
rained  ! 

Yet  Mr.  Ingersoll  cannot  understand  how  they  could  get 
in.  It  is  amazing  to  him.  And  then,  that  one  window  in 
the  ark  which  afforded  such  poor  ventilation  to  the  creatures 
there  assembled — that  small  window  in  the  ark  which  ex- 
cites so  much  mirthfulness  on  the  part  of  the  great  infidel. 
If  he  had  known  as  much  Hebrew  as  you  could  put  on  your 
little-finger  nail,  he  would  have  known  that  that  word  trans- 
lated "  window"  there  means  tuiiidoiu-course,  a  whole  range  of 
lights.  This  ignorant  infidel  does  not  know  a  window-pane 
from  twenty  windows. 

So,  if  there  is  any  criticism  of  the  ark,  there  seems  to  be 
too  much  window  for  such  a  long  storm.  This  infidel  says 
that  during  the  long  storm  the  window  must  have  been 
kept  shut  and  hence  no  air.  There  are  people  who,  all  the 
way  from  Liverpool  to  Barnegat  Lighthouse,  and  for  two 
weeks,  were  kept  under  deck,  the  hatches  battened  down  be- 
cause of  the  storm.  Some  of  you,  in  the  old-time  sailing- 
vessels,  were  kept  nearly  a  month  with  the  hatches  down 
because  of  some  long  storm. 

LANDING   OF  THE   ARK. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  says  that  the  ark  landed  on  a  mountain 
seventeen  thousand  feet  high,  and  that  of  course,  as  soon 
as  the  animals  came  forth,  they  would  all  be  frozen  in  the 
ice !  Here  comes  in  Mr.  Ingersoll's  geographical  ignor- 
ance. He  does  not  seem  to  know  that  Ararat  is  not  merely 
the  name  for  a  mountain,  but  for  a  hilly  district,  and  that  it 
may  have  been  a  hill  twenty  feet  high,  or  a  hundred  feet,  or 
two  hundred  feet  high  on  which  the  ark  alighted.  But  in 
order  to  raise  a  laugh  against  the  Holy  Scriptures,  Mr.  In- 
gersoll lifts  the  ark  seventeen  thousand  feet  high,  showing 
an  ignorance  of  just  that  altitude ! 

The  flood  that  Ingersoll  describes  is  not  Noah's  flood  ;  it 
\s  Ingersoll s  flood  o{  hatred  against  God.     It  is  not  Noah's 


50  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ark  that  Ingcrsoll  describes  ;  it  is  Ingersoll's  ark,  witli  a  whole 
flock  of  hootinj^  owls  of  the  midnight  of  Infidelity,  whole 
nests  of  vipcrinc  and  addcrine  venom  against  God,  whole 
lairs  of  panthers  which  with  spotted  claw,  if  they  could, 
would  maul  the  eternal  God  to  pieces.  And  there  is  only 
one  small  window  in  that  ark  and  it  opens  into  the  blackness 
of  darkness  described  by  the  words,  "  having  the  under- 
standing darkened,  being  alienated  from  the  life  of  God 
through  the  ignorance  that  is  in  them." 

We  are  not  entirely  dependent  on  the  Bible  for  the  story 
of  the  flood.  All  ages  and  all  literatures  have  traditions — 
broken  traditions,  indistinct  traditions,  but  still  traditions. 
The  traditions  of  the  Chaldeans  say  that  in  the  time  when 
Xysuthrus  was  king,  there  was  a  great  flood,  and  he  put  his 
family  and  his  friends  in  a  large  vessel  and  all  outside  of 
them  were  destroyed,  and  after  a  while  the  birds  w^ent  forth 
and  they  came  back  and  their  wings  were  tinged  with  mud. 
Lucian  and  Ovid,  celebrated  writers  who  had  never  seen 
the  Bible,  described  a  flood  in  the  time  of  Deucalion.  He 
took  his  friends  into  a  boat,  and  the  animals  came  running 
to  him  in  pairs.  And  so  all  lands,  all  ages,  and  all  litera- 
tures seem  to  have  a  broken  and  indistinct  tradition  of  a 
calamity  which  Moses,  here  incorporating  Noah's  account,  so 
grandly,  so  beautifully,  so  accurately,  so  solemn!}'  records. 

Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  have  impeached  Robert  G.  In- 
gersoll  for  having  misrepresented  once,  twice,  thrice,  and  I 
demand  that  you  put  into  execution  the  principle  of  every 
court-room,  and  throw  overboard  his  entire  testimon}'. 
"  False  in  part,  false  in  all."  And  my  prayer  is  that  the  God 
who  created  the  world,  not  out  of  nothing,  but  out  of  his  own 
omnipotence,  may  create  us  anew  in  Christ  Jesus  ;  and  that 
the  God  who  made  light  three  days  before  the  sun  shone 
may  kindle  in  our  souls  a  light  that  will  burn  on  long  after 
the  sun  has  expired  ;  and  that  the  God  ,who  ordered  the 
ark  built  and  kept  open  more  than  one  hundred  years,  that 
the  antediluvians  might  enter  it  for  shelter,  may  graciously 
incline  us  to  accept  the  invitation  which   rolls  in  music  from 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  5  I 

the  throne,  saying,    "Come  thou  and  all  thy  house  into  the 
ark." 

THE  JEWS   IN   EGYPT. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  also  says  the  Bible  lies  because  when  the 
Jews  went  into  Egypt  there  were  seventy  of  them  ;  they 
stayed  there  two  hundred  and  fifteen  years,  and  there  were 
three  millions ;  and  he  says  according  to  that  calculation 
there  must  have  been  sixty-eight  children  in  each  of  the 
households.  It  seems  a  very  funny  thing  to  him.  The  fact 
is,  instead  of  being  there  in  Egypt  two  hundred  and  fifteen 
years,  according  to  Mr.  Ingersoll's  statement,  the  Bible 
plainly  declares  they  were  there  four  hundred  and  tJiirty 
years,  and  the  population  of  three  millions  was  just  the  or- 
dinary increase  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  making  his  audience  laugh,  Mr.  Ingersoll  cuts  off 
two  hundred  and  fifteen  years,  in  order  that  he  may  make 
that  story  about  the  enormous  and  improbable  and  impos- 
sible increase.  In  order  that  he  may  appear  smart,  he  cuts 
off  from  the  Jewish  nation  twice  as  much  history  as  transpired 
between  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence,  in 
1776,  and  1882.  He  says  it  is  two  hundred  and  fifteen 
years  according  to  the  Bible,  when  the  Bible  twice  declares 
it  was  four  hundred  and  thirty.  Now  I  say  that  a  man 
who  will  do  that,  will  do  anything  but  be  honest  about  the 
Word  of  God. 

THE  ANOINTING-OIL. 

The  blasphemer  also  laughs  at  the  anointing-oil  used  in 
setting  apart  Aaron  to  his  of^ce.  and  he  jeers  at  the  judg- 
ments of  God  for  the  misuse  of  the  anointing-oil  in  olden 
time.  Now,  my  friends,  it  is  very  easy  to  scoff  at  anything 
which  is  used  as  a  symbol.  I  do  not  belong  to  the  Order  of 
Masons,  nor  have  I  ever  seen  the  ceremony,  but  when  the 
Order  of  Masons  puts  anointing-oil  on  the  corner-stone  of  a 
new  building,  no  good  man  would  laugh  at  it.  Any  man 
would  know  that  it  is  a  symbol  of  dedication  and  consecra- 


53  TRLMl'ET  I'EA/.S. 

tion  ;  anybody  would  know  that  is  a  prayer;  just  as  in  one 
case  it  might  be  a  prayer  of  the  lips,  in  the  other  case  it  is  a 
prayer  of  the  right  hand — as  much  as  to  say :  "  Let  this  be 
a  prosperous  builtiing;  let  this  be  a  consecrated  building.'" 

A  man  might  just  as  well  laugh  at  the  water  used  in  holy 
rite  in  the  church  ;  whether  sprinkled  from  the  font,  or  stand- 
ing in  the  baptistery,  it  is  simply  a  farce  unless  it  be  a  sym- 
bol ;  and  if  a  symbol,  then  every  earnest  man,  whether  Chris- 
tian or  unbeliever,  sees  it  to  be  beautifully  significant.  A 
man's  immortal  nature  must  be  awfully  atwist  who  can  find 
anything  to  laugh  at  either  in  the  water  of  baptism,  or  in 
the  anointing-oil  on  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  building,  or 
in  the  oil  of  the  ancient  sanctuary  used  in  consecration. 
A  man  can  laugh  at  anything  if  he  wants  to.  He  might 
laugh  at  the  serezus  on  his  child's  coffin. 

THE   SUN   AND    MOON   STOOD   STILL. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  finds  great  cause  for  caricature  in  the  Bible 
statement  that  in  Joshua's  time  the  sun  and  moon  stood 
still  to  allow  him  to  complete  his  victory.  He  declares  that 
an  impossibility.  If  a  man  have  brain  and  strength  enough 
to  make  a  clock,  can  he  not  start  it  and  stop  it  ?  and  start  it 
again  and  stop  it  again?  If  a  machinist  have  strength  and 
brain  enough  to  make  a  corn-thresher,  can  he  not  start  it 
and  stop  it?  and  start  it  again  and  stop  it  again?  If  God 
have  strength  and  wisdom  to  make  the  clock  of  the  universe, 
the  great  machinery  of  the  worlds,  has  He  not  strength 
enough  and  wisdom  enough  to  start  it  and  stop  it  ?  and  start 
it  again  and  stop  it  again  ?  or  stop  one  wheel,  or  stop  twenty 
wheels,  or  stop  all  the  wheels?  Is  the  clock  stronger  than 
the  clockmaker  ?  Does  the  corn-thresher  know  more  than 
the  machinist?     Is  the  universe  mightier  than  its  God? 

Mr.  Ingersoll  finds  great  cause  of  glee  in  the  fact  that  the 
Bible  states  that  the  moon  stopped  as  well  as  the  sun.  If 
you  have  never  seen  the  moon  in  the  daytime,  it  is  because 
you  have  not  been  a  very  diligent  observer  of  the  heavens. 
Beside  that,  it  was  not   necessary  for  the  world   literally  to 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  $3 

stop.  By  unusual  refraction  of  the  sun's  rays  the  day  might 
have  been  prolonged.  So  that,  while  the  earth  continued 
on  its  path  in  the  heavens,  it  figuratively  stopped.  You 
must  remember  that  these  Bible  authors  used  the  vernacu 
lar  of  their  own  day,  just  as  you  and  I  say  the  sun  went 
down.  The  sun  never  goes  down.  We  simply  describe 
what  appears  to  the  human  eye. 

Now,  I  say,  if  God  can  start  a  world,  and  swing  a  world, 
He  could  stop  one  or  two  of  them  without  a  great  deal  of 
exertion,  or  He  could  by  unusual  refraction  of  the  sun's  rays, 
continue  the  illumination. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  goes  into  great  scoff  and  jeer  at  that  battle 
which  Joshua  fought,  as  though  it  were  an  insignificant  bat- 
tle, and  was  not  worthy  to  have  the  day  prolonged.  Why, 
sirs,  what  Yorktown  was  for  Revolutionary  times,  and  what 
Gettysburg  was  in  our  civil  contest,  and  what  Sedan  was  in 
the  Franco-German  war,  and  what  Waterloo  was  in  Napole 
onic  destiny — that  was  this  battle  of  Joshua  against  the  five 
allied  armies  of  Gibeon.  It  was  a  battle  that  changed  the 
entire  course  of  history.  It  was  a  battle  to  Joshua  as  im- 
portant as  though  a  battle  now  should  occur  in  which  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  and  France  and  Germany  and 
Italy  and  Turkey  and  Russia  should  fight  for  victory  or 
annihilation.  However  much  any  other  world,  solar,  lunar, 
or  stellar,  might  be  hastened  in  its  errand  of  light,  it  would 
be  excusable  if  it  lingered  in  the  heavens  for  a  little  while 
and  put  down  its  sheaf  of  beams,  and  gazed  on  such  an 
Armageddon. 

A  celebrated  eye-doctor  in  Boston  recently  declared  that 
right  after  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  he  had  an  unusual  number 
of  cases  of  diseases  of  the  eye  to  treat ;  and  he  accounted  for 
it  by  the  fact  that  so  many  people  were,  through  smoked 
glass,  looking  at  the  sun  in  eclipse.  So  it  seems  that  the 
sun  that  stood  above  Gibeon  damaged  the  eyes  of  Mr.  In- 
gersoll, because  he  looks  at  it  through  a  glass  smoked  with 
the  fires  of  his  own  hatred  against  Christianity  and  against 
God.  Under  this  explanation,  instead  of  being  sceptical 
about  this  sublime  passage  of  the  Bible,  you  will  when  you 


54  TRUMPET   PEALS. 

read  it  feci  more  like  going  dt)\vn  on  }-our  knees  before  God 
as  you  read,  "Sun,  stand  thou  still  above  Gibeon,  and  thou 
moon  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon." 


JONAH    AM)   TIIK    WHALE, 

Mr.  Ingeisoll  finds  great  cause  of  caricature  in  the  Bible 
statement  that  a  whale  swallowed  Jonah  and  ejected  him 
upon  the  dry  ground  in  three  days.  If  Mr.  IngersoU  would 
go  to  the  museum  at  Nantucket,  Massachusetts,  he  would 
find  the  skeleton  of  a  whale  large  enough  to  swallow  a 
man.  I  said  to  the  janitor  while  I  was  standing  in  the 
museum,  "  Why,  it  does  not  seem  from  the  looks  of  this 
skeleton  that  that  story  in  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  so  very  im- 
probable, does  it  ?"  "  O,  no,"  he  replied,  "  it  does  not." 
There  is  a  cavity  in  the  mouth  of  the  common  whale  large 
enough  for  a  man  to  live  in.  There  have  been  sharks  found 
again  and  again  with  an  entire  human  bod}-  in  them. 

Beside  that,  if  Mr.  Ingcrsoll  and  the  other  scoffers  at  the 
Bible  would  only  read  this  Book  of  Jonah  a  little  more  care- 
full\%  they  would  fiiul  that  it  says  nothing  about  a  whale.  It 
says,  "  the  Lord  prepared  a  great  fish;"  and  there  are  sci- 
entists who  tell  us  that  there  were  sea  monsters  in  other 
days  that  make  the  modern  whale  seem  very  insignificant. 
I  know  in  one  place  in  the  New  Testament  it  speaks  of  the 
whale  as  appearing  in  the  occurrence  I  had  just  mentioned  ; 
but  the  word  may  just  as  well  be  translated  "  sea  monster  " 
— any  kind  of  a  sea  monster. 

Procopius  says  that  in  the  year  582  a  sea  monster  was  slain 
which  had  for  fifty  years  destro}'ed  ships.  I  suppose  this 
sea  monster  that  took  care  of  Jonah  may  have  been  one  of 
the  great  sea  monsters  that  could  have  easil)'  taken  down  a 
projihet,  and  he  could  have  lived  there  three  days  if  lie  had 
kept  in  motion  so  as  to  keep  the  gastric  juices  from  taking 
hold  of  him  and  destrojing  him — a  sea  monster  large  enough 
to  take  down  Mr.  IngersoU  and  all  his  blaspheni)-.  and  at 
the  enti  of  three  da}'s  it  wouLl  be  as  siek  as  the  historic 
whale  wliich  regurgitated  Jonah  ! 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  55 

Beside  that,  my  friends,  there  is  one  word  which  explains 
the  whole  thing.  It  says,  "  the  Lord  prepared  ^l  great  fish." 
If  a  ship  carpenter  prepare  a  vessel  to  carry  Texan  beeve- 
to  Glasgow,  I  suppose  it  can  carry  Texan  beeves;  if  a  ship 
carpenter  prepare  a  vessel  to  carry  coal  to  one  of  the  north- 
ern ports,  I  suppose  it  can  carry  coal ;  if  a  ship  carpenter  pre- 
pare a  vessel  to  carry  passengers  to  Liverpool,  I  suppose  it  can 
carry  passengers  to  Liverpool  ;  and  if  the  Lord  prepared  a 
fish  to  carry  one  passenger,  I  suppose  it  could  carry  a  pas- 
senger and  the  ventilation  have  been  all  right. 

Did  not  a  meteor  run  on  evangelistic  errand  on  the  first 
Christmas  night,  and  designate  the  rough  cradle  of  our 
Lord?  Did  not  the  stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  Sis- 
era  ?  Was  it  merely  coincidental  that  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  the  moon  was  eclipsed  for  twelve  consecu- 
tive nights?  Did  it  merely  happen  so  that  a  new  star  ap- 
peared in  constellation  Cassiopeia,  and  then  disappeared 
just  before  King  Charles  IX.  of  France,  who  was  responsible 
for  St.  Bartholomew  massacre,  died  ?  Was  it  without  sig- 
nificance that  in  the  days  of  the  Roman  Emperor  Justinian 
war  and  famine  were  preceded  by  the  dimness  of  the  sun, 
which  for  nearly  a  year  gave  no  more  light  than  the  moon, 
although  there  were  no  clouds  to  obscure  it? 

INCREDULITY   REBUTTED. 

In  the  days  of  George  Stephenson,  the  perfcctor  of  the 
locomotive  engine,  the  scientists  proved  conclusively  that  a 
railway  train  could  never  be  driven  by  steam-power  success- 
fully without  peril ;  but  the  rushing  express  trains  from  Liv- 
erpool to  Edinburgh,  and  from  Edinburgh  to  London,  have 
made  all  the  nation  witnesses  of  the  splendid  achievement. 
Machinists  and  navigators  proved  conclusively  that  a  steamer 
could  never  cross  the  Atlantic  Ocean  ;  but  no  sooner  had 
they  successfully  proved  the  impossibility  of  such  an  under- 
taking than  the  work  was  done,  and  the  passengers  on  the 
Cunard  and  the  Inman  and  the  National  and  the  White  Star 
lines  are  witnesses.     There  went  up  a  guffaw  of  wise  laughter 


56  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

at  Professor  Morse's  proposition  to  make  the  lightning  of 
heaven  his  errand  boy,  and  it  was  proved  conclusively  that 
the  thing  could  never  be  done;  but  now  all  the  news  of  the 
wide  world,  by  Associated  Press,  put  in  your  hands  every 
morning  and  night,  has  made  all  nations  witnesses. 

So  in  the  time  of  Christ  it  was  proved  conclusively  that 
it  was  impossible  for  Him  to  rise  from  the  dead.  It  was 
shown  logically  that  when  a  man  was  dead,  he  was  dead,  and 
the  heart  and  the  liver  and  the  lungs  having  ceased  to  per- 
form their  ofifices,  the  limbs  would  be  rigid  beyond  all  power 
of  friction  or  arousal.  They  showed  it  to  be  an  absolute 
absurdity  that  the  dead  Christ  should  ever  get  up  alive ; 
but  no  sooner  had  they  proved  this  than  the  dead  Christ 
arose,  and  the  disciples  beheld  Him,  heard  His  voice,  and 
talked  with  Him,  and  they  took  the  witness  stand,  to  prove 
that  to  be  true  which  the  wiseacres  of  the  day  had  proved 
to  be  impossible  ;  the  record  of  the  experiment  and  of  the 
testimony  is  in  the  text  :  "  Him  hath  God  raised  from  the 
dead,  whereof  we  arc  witnesses." 

"  There  is  no  God,"  sa\-s  the  skeptic,  "  for  I  have  never 
seen  him  with  my  physical  eyesight.  Your  Bible  is  a  pack 
of  contradictions.  There  never  was  a  miracle.  Lazarus 
was  not  raised  from  the  dead,  and  the  water  was  never 
turned  into  wine.  Your  religion  is  an  imposition  on  the 
credulity  of  the  ages."  You  are  in  one  respect  like  Lord 
Nelson,  when  a  signal  was  lifted  that  he  wished  to  disregard 
and  he  put  his  sea-glass  to  his  blind  eye  and  said  :  "  I  really 
do  not  see  the  signal."  Oh,  my  hearer,  put  this  field-glass 
of  the  Gospel  no  longer  to  your  blind  eye,  and  say  I  cannot 
see,  but  put  it  to  your  other  eye,  the  eye  of  faith,  and  you  will 
see  Christ  and  He  is  all y on  need  to  sec. 

[The  Editor  here  quotes  the  old  adage:    "None  are  so  blind  as 
those  who  will  not  see."J 

GRAVEN  IMAGES. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  also  runshishead  against  the  tables  of  stone 
and  tries  to  break  off  one  of  the  ten  commandments.       He 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  S7 

says  when  the  Bible  declares  we  must  not  make  any  graven 
image,  it  prohibits  art  and  it  killed  all  art  in  Palestine.  He 
says  that  a  commandment  which  is  opposed  to  art  cannot 
be  a  good  commandment ;  it  must  be  a  bad  commandment. 
Now,  every  man  of  common-sense  knows  that  when  the  com- 
mandment prohibits  the  making  of  graven  images,  it  is  the 
making  of  them  for  purposes  of  worship,  and  that  it  does 
not  forbid  painting  and  sculpture,  which  are  the  regalement 
of  elevated  taste. 

Let  us  see  :  Is  the  Bible  opposed  to  art  ?  Just  look  over 
and  find  that  God  sent  two  sculptors,  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab, 
to  ornament  the  ancient  temple.  If  God  were  opposed  to 
art,  if  the  Bible  were  hostile  to  sculpture,  would  Bezaleel 
and  Aholiab  have  been  ordained  of  high  Heaven  to  orna- 
ment that  ancient  building  ?  Is  the  Bible  antagonistic  to 
painting  ?  Go  through  all  the  picture-galleries  of  the  world, 
and  find  that  the  great  subjects  of  the  painters  are  Bible 
subjects.  Blot  out  all  the  Bible  subjects  from  the  art  galleries 
of  the  world,  and  you  blot  out  the  best  part  of  the  galleries 
at  Naples,  and  at  Florence,  and  at  Rome,  and  at  Paris,  and 
at  Edinburgh,  and  of  all  the  private  picture-galleries  of  the 
world  ;  and  you  tear  down  St.  Paul's,  and  Westminster  Ab- 
bey, and  the  cathedrals  of  Cologne  and  Milan,  and  you  de- 
stroy the  Vatican. 

Is  the  Bible  opposed  to  the  art  of  painting,  as  Mr.  IngersoU 
over  and  over  again  declares  ?  What  were  the  subjects  of 
Raphael's  great  paintings?  The  Transfiguration,  The  Mi- 
raculous Draught  of  Fishes,  The  Charge  to  Peter,  The  Holy 
Family,  The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  Moses  at  the  Burn- 
ing Bush,  The  Nativity ;  Michael,  The  Archangel,  and  four 
or  five  exquisite  Madonnas. 

What  were  Paul  Veronese's  great  pictures  ?  Queen  of 
Sheba,  The  Marriage  in  Cana,  Magdalen  Washing  the  Feet 
of  Christ,  The  Holy  Family.  Who  has  not  heard  of  Da 
Vinci's  Last  Supper?  Who  has  not  heard  of  Turner's  Pools 
of  Solomon  ?  Who  has  not  heard  of  Rubens'  Scourging  of 
Jesus?  Who  has  not  heard  of  Dore  on  everything  from  the 
creation   to    the  last    conflagration  ?   The   mightiest    paint- 


58  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ings  ever  made  are  on  Bible  subjects  and  yet  Mr.  Ingersoll 
dares  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  an  American  audience  and 
tell  them  that  the  Bible  is  antagonistic  to  art — never  a 
ghastlier  or  more  outrageous  misrepresentation  since  the 
world  stood.  The  very  best  paintings,  the  very  grandest  art, 
born  at  the  altars  of  our  God. 


THE   BIBLE   A    CRUEL    BOOK. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  with  great  vehemence 
declare  that  the  Bible  is  a  cruel  book.  They  read  the  story 
of  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanitcs,  and  of  all  the 
ancient  wars,  and  of  the  history  of  David  and  Joshua,  and 
they  come  to  the  conslusion  that  the  Bible  is  in  favor  of 
laceration  and  manslaughter  and  massacre.  Now,  a  bad 
book  will  produce  a  bad  result,  a  cruel  book  will  produce  a 
cruel  result. 

Where  docs  the  cruelty  crop  out  ?  At  what  time  did  you 
notice  that  the  teachings  of  this  Holy  Bible  created  cruelty  in 
the  heart  and  the  life  of  George  Peabody,  of  Miss  Dix,  of  Flor- 
ence Nightingale,  of  John  Howard,  of  John  Frederick  Ober- 
Hn,  of  Abbott  Lawrence?  Have  you  not,  on  the  contrary, 
noticed  that  all  the  institutions  of  mercy  were  established  or, 
being  established, were  chiefly  supported  by  the  friends  of  this 
liook  ?  When  you  can  make  the  rose-leaf  stab  like  a  bayo- 
net, and  wiien  )'ou  can  manufacture  icicles  out  of  the  south 
wind,  and  when  you  can  poison  your  tongue  with  honey  got- 
ten from  blossoming  buckwheat, then  you  can  get  cruelty  out 
of  the  Bible.  That  charge  of  Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadju- 
tors falls  flat  in  the  presence  of  every  honest  man. 

A   MASS   OF   CONTRADICTIONS. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  also  say  the  Bible  is  a 
mass  of  contradictions,  and  they  put  prophet  against  pro- 
phet, evangelist  against  evangelist,  apostle  against  apostle, 
and  they  say  if  this  be  true,  how  then  can  that  be  true  ? 
Mr.  Mill,  who  was  a  friend  of  the  liible,  said  he  had  discov- 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  59 

ered  thirty  thousand  different  readings  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
yet  not  one  ii)iporta)it  difference — not  one  important  differ- 
ence out  of  thirty  thousand— only  the  difference  that  you 
might  expect  from  the  fact  that  the  book  came  down  from 
generation  to  generation  and  was  copied  by  a  great  many 
hands.  And  yet  I  put  before  you  this  fact  to-day,  that  all 
the  Bible-writers  agree  in  the  four  great  doctrines  of  the 
Bible. 

What  are  those  four  great  doctrines  ?  God — good,  kind, 
patient,  just,  loving.  Omnipotent.  Man — a  lost  sinner. 
Two  destinies — one  for  believers,  the  other  for  unbelievers  ; 
all  who  accept  Christ  reaching  that  home,  and  only  those  de 
stroyed  who  destroy  themselves  ;  only  those  who  turn  their 
back  upon  Christ  and  come  to  the  precipice  and  jump  off, 
for  God  never  pushes  a  man  off,  he  jumps  off.  Now,  in 
these  four  great  doctrines  all  the  Bible-writers  agree.  Mo- 
zart, Beethoven,  Handel,  Haydn  never  wrote  more  harmo- 
nious music  than  you  will  find  in  this  perfect  harmony  in  the 
Word  of  God,  the  harmony  in  providence  and  in  grace. 

You  must  remember  also  that  the  authors  of  the  Bible 
came  from  different  lands,  from  different  ages,  and  from  dif- 
ferent centuries.  They  had  no  communication  with  each 
other,  they  did  not  have  an  idea  as  to  what  was  the  chief 
design  of  the  Bible,  and  yet  their  writings,  gotten  up  from 
all  these  different  lands,  and  from  all  these  different  ages, 
and  all  these  different  centuries,  coming  together  make  a 
perfect  harmony  in  the  opinion  of  the  very  best  scholars  of 
this  country  and  of  England.  Is  not  that  a  most  remarkable 
fact? 

It  is  as  though  some  great  cathedral  were  to  be  built  and 
a  hundred  workmen  w'ere  to  be  employed  on  it,  and  they 
were  in  many  lands,  and  in  different  centuries,  and  these 
workmen  had  no  communication  with  each  other  in  regard 
to  the  grand  design  of  the  building ;  and  yet  all  their  frag- 
ments of  work  brought  together,  it  is  a  perfect  architec- 
tural triumph,  although  the  man  who  built  a  pillar  knew 
nothing  of  the  man  who  built  the  dome,  and  the  man  who 
built  the  doorway  knew  nothing  of  the  man  who   lifted   the 


6o  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

arch  :    yet  a  complete  accord,  a  complete  architecture,  and 
a  complete  triumph. 

IMPOSITION   ON   CREDULITY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  go  onto  say  that  the 
Bible  is  made  up  of  a  lot  of  manuscripts,  one  picked  up  here 
and  another  there,  and  another  from  some  other  place,  and 
that  the  whole  thing  is  an  imposition  on  the  credulity  of 
the  human  race.     I  must  reply  to  that  charge. 

The  Bible  is  made  up  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  Testament.  Let  us  take  the  New  Testament  first. 
Why  do  I  believe  it?  Why  do  I  take  it  to  my  heart?  It  is 
because  it  can  be  traced  back  to  the  divine  heart. 

Jerome  and  Eusebiusin  the  fourth  century,  and  Origcn  in 
the  second  century,  and  other  writers  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries  gave  a  list  of  the  New-Testament  writers  just  ex- 
actly corresponding  with  our  list,  showing  that  the  same 
New  Testament  which  we  have  they  had  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, and  the  third  century,  and  the  second  century,  and  the 
first  century.  But  where  did  they  get  the  New  Testament  ? 
They  got  it  from  Irenseus.  Where  did  Irena^usget  it?  He 
got  it  from  Polycarp.  Where  did  Polycarp  get  it  ?  He 
got  it  from  St.  John,  who  was  the  personal  associate  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  My  grandfather  gave  a  book  to  my 
father,  my  father  gave  it  to  me,  I  give  it  to  my  child.  Is 
there  any  difficulty  in  tracing  this  line? 

On  Communion  Day  I  will  start  the  chalice  at  that  end  of 
the  aisle,  and  the  chalice  will  pass  along  to  the  other  end  of 
this  aisle.  Will  it  be  difficult  to  trace  the  line  of  that  holy 
chalice?  No  difficulty  at  all.  This  one  will  say,  "  I  gave  it 
to  that  one,"  and  this  one  will  say,  "  I  gave  it  to  that  one." 
But  it  will  not  be  so  long  a  line  as  this  to  trace  the  New  Tes- 
tament. It  is  easier  to  get  at  the  fact.  But  you  say  :  "Al- 
though this  was  handed  right  down  in  that  way,  who  knows 
but  they  were  lying  impostors?  How  can  you  take  their 
testimony  ?"  They  died  for  the  truth  of  that  book.  Men 
never  die  for  a  lie  cheerfully  and  triumphantly.     They  were 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  6 1 

not  lying  impostors.  They  died  in  triumph  for  the  truth  of 
that  New  Testament. 

"  But  how  about  the  Old  Testament  ?  Why  do  you  be- 
lieve that  ?"  I  believe  the  Old  Testament  because  the 
prophecies  foretold  events  hundreds  and  thousands  of  years 
ahead,  events  which  afterward  took  place.  Hew  far  can  you 
see  ahead?  Two  thousand  years?  Can  you  see  ahead  a 
hundred  years?  Can  you  see  ahead  five  minutes?  No,  no. 
Human  prophecy  amounts  to  nothing.  Here  these  old 
prophets  stood  thousands  of  years  back,  and  they  foretold 
events  which  came  accurately  true  far  on  in  the  future  cen- 
turies. Suppose  I  should  stand  here  this  morning  and  say 
to  you,  twenty-five  hundred  and  sixty  years  from  now,  three 
miles  and  a  half  from  the  city  of  Moscow  there  will  be  an 
advent,  and  it  will  be  in  a  certain  family,  and  it  will  be  amid 
certain  surroundings.  It  would  make  no  impression  upon 
you,  because  you  know  I  cannot  foresee  a  thousand  years, 
or  one  year,  or  one  minute,  and  I  cannot  tell  what  is  going 
to  transpire  in  a  land  that  I  have  never  looked  at.  But  that 
is  what  these  old  prophets  did. 

You  must  remember  that  Tyre  and  Babylon  and  Nineveh 
were  in  full  pomp  and  splendor  when  these  prophecies,  these 
old  prophecies,  said  they  would  be  destroyed.  Those  cities 
had  architecture  that  make  the  houses  on  Madison  Square 
and  Fifth  Avenue  perfectly  insignificant.  Yet  these  old 
prophets  walked  right  through  those  magnificent  streets  and 
said  :  "  This  has  all  got  to  come  down  ;  that  is  all  going  to  be 
levelled." 

Suppose  a  man  should  stand  up  in  these  cities  to-day 
and  say  :  "  The  East  River  will  overflow  and  Brooklyn  will 
be  destroyed,  and  the  Hudson  River  will  overflow  and  New 
York  will  be  destroyed  ;  and  then  there  will  be  a  great  earth- 
quake and  the  two  rivers  will  forsake  their  beds,  and  there 
will  be  harvests  of  wheat  and  corn  where  these  cities  now 
stand,  and  Fulton  Street  and  Broadway  will  be  pasture  for 
cattle."  Such  a  man  would  be  sent  to  Bloomingdale  Insane- 
Asylum.  Yet  the  old  prophets  did  that  very  thing.  Where 
is  Babylon  to-day?     You  go  and  walk  over  the  ruins  of  Bab- 


62  TRi'MPET  PEALS. 

ylon  and  you  will  not  find  a  leaf  or  a  grass-blade  of  those 
splendid  hanging-gardens,  and  in  the  summer-time  the  ground 
actually  blisters  the  feet  of  the  traveller.  Babylon  destroyed 
according  to  the  prophecy. 

Where  is  Tyre  ?  In  the  day  of  its  pomp,  the  prophet 
said  :  "  The  fishermen  will  dry  their  nets  where  this  city 
stands."  If  you  should  go  to  that  place  to-day,  you  would 
find  that  literally,  the  fishermen  are  drying  their  nets  on 
the  rocks  where  the  city  of  Tyre  once  stood.  Tartar,  and 
Turk,  and  Saracen,  drying  their  nets  on  the  rocks. 

Go  up  Chatham  Street  and  find  the  fulfilment  of  a  proph- 
ecy made  thousands  of  years  ago.  Why  is  it  the  Jew  is  al- 
ways distinguishable,  whether  you  see  him  in  New  York,  or 
Brooklyn,  or  Madras,  or  Pekin,  or  Vienna,  or  Stockholm,  or 
London,  or  Paris?  The  Englishman  comes  to  America,  and 
after  a  while  he  loses  his  nationality.  The  American  goes 
to  England,  and  after  a  while  he  loses  his  nationality.  The 
Norwegian  his,  the  Russian  his,  the  Italian  his,  the  Spaniard 
his,  the  Jew  never.  Why  ?  Because  this  Book  provided 
thousands  of  years  ago  that  the  Jews  should  be  scattered  in 
all  lands,  and  that  they  should  be  kept  separate,  separate,  until 
the  Lord  took  them  back  to  Jerusalem.  And  ye  who  perse- 
cute the  Jews  had  better  look  out.  They  are  God's  people 
yet,  and  ivorse  ealamities  tJian  the  assassination  of  a  Ccarzvill 
come  upon  Russia  if  she  does  not  take  her  foot  off  the 
Jews.  They  are  God's  people,  and  according  to  the  proph- 
ecy made  thousands  of  years  ago  they  are  distinguishable, 
they  are  kept  separate,  until  the  Lord  takes  them  to  their 
native  land. 

How  could  those  old  prophets  foretell  that?  How  could 
they  know  that  thousands  of  years  ago?  Was  it  mere  human 
skill  ?  Could  you  have  seen  so  far  ahead  ?  Could  you  have 
predicted  anything  like  it  ?  Those  old  prophets  stood  look- 
ing down  in  the  great  future,  and  said  a  Messiah  would  be 
born,  in  a  certain  nation,  in  a  certain  tribe,  in  a  certain  fam- 
ily, in  a  certain  place,  at  a  certain  time,  thousands  of  years 
ahead.  Ages  rolled  on,  ages  on  ages,  and  after  a  while  Christ, 
the  only  One  who  has  been  called    Messiah    by  any  great 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  63 

number  of  people— Christ  was  born,  in  that  very  nation  pre- 
dicted, in  that  very  tribe,  in  that  very  family,  in  that  very 
place,  at  that  very  time.  Could  human  skill  have  predicted  it  ? 
Does  not  that  prove  beyond  all  controversion  and  beyond 
all  doubt  that  those  prophets  were  inspired  of  the  Lord  Al- 
mighty, looking  down  in  the  future  and  seeing  thousands  of 
years  ahead  occurrences  to  take  place  ? 


INDECENCIES. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  picks  up  the  Bible  from  his  lecture-stand, 
reads  a  little,  and  says,  "  I  cannot  read  it  all — it  would  not 
be  proper  for  me  to  read  it  all," — and  then  he  affects  to 
blush.  He  is  overcome  with  modesty  and  delicacy!  He 
dares  the  clergy  to  read  certain  passages  in  the  pulpit,  and 
dares  parents  to  read  certain  passages  in  the  family  circle. 
Now  my  reply  is  this  :  There  are  parts  of  the  Bible  that 
were  not  intended  either  to  be  read  in  the  pulpit  or  family 
circle,  just  as  I  can  go  into  any  physician's  ofifice  in  Brooklyn 
or  elsewhere  and  find  medical  journals  on  the  table  or  books 
in  his  library  which  he  never  has  read  to  his  family,  yet 
good  books,  pure  books,  scientific  books,  without  which  he 
would  not  be  worthy  the  name  of  physician.  They  are  to 
be  read  in  private. 

You  must  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  pathol- 
ogy of  disease.  You  must  know  that  there  are  parts  of  the 
Bible  which  are  tJie  anatomy  of  iniquity,  which  are  descrip- 
tions of  the  lazar-house  of  the  soul  when  it  is  unrestrained  ; 
and  from  the  reading  of  those  portions  in  private  we  arise 
with  a  healthy  disgust  and  horror  for  sin.  The  pathology 
must  come  before  the  pharmacy  and  the  therapeutics. 
Every  physician  knows  that.  Any  man  who  has  the  least 
smattering  of  medicine  knows  that.  The  pathology,  or  dis- 
cussion of  disease,  before  the  pharmacy,  or  the  cure  of  it. 

From  certain  portions  of  the  Word  of  God  we  go  forth 
as  from  a  dissecting-room,  more  intelligent  than  when  we 
went  in,  but  in  no  wise  enamored  of  putrefaction.     There  is 


fJ4  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

a  Byronic  description  of  sin  which  allures  and  destroys,  but 
there  is  a  Bible  description  of  sin  which  warns  and  saves. 

And  yet  Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  most  vehe- 
mently charge  that  this  Bible  is  an  impure  book.  But  you 
all  know  that  an  impure  book  produces  impure  results.  No 
amount  of  money  could  hire  you  to  allow  your  child  to  read 
an  unclean  book.  Now,  if  this  Bible  be  an  impure  book, 
where  are  the  victims  ?  Your  father  read  it — did  it  make 
him  a  bad  man  ?  Your  mother  read  it — did  it  make  her  a 
bad  woman  ?  Your  sister  fifteen  years  in  Heaven  died  in 
the  faith  of  this  Gospel — did  it  despoil  her  nature  ?  Some 
say  there  are  two  million  copies  of  the  Bible  in  existence, 
some  say  there  are  three  million  copies  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
impossible  to  get  the  accurate  statistics ;  but  suppose  there 
are  two  million  copies  of  the  Bible  abroad, — this  one  book 
read  more  than  any  twenty  books  that  the  world  ever 
printed,  this  book  abroad  for  ages,  for  centuries, — where  are 
the  victims?  Show  me  a  thousand.  Show  me  five  hundred 
victims  of  an  impure  book.  Show  me  a  hundred  despoiled 
of  the  Bible.  Show  me  fifty.  Show  me  ten.  Show  me 
two.  Show  me  one  !  Two  hundred  million  copies  of  an 
impure  book,  and  not  one  victim  of  the  impurity !  On  the 
contrary,  you  know  very  well  that  it  is  where  the  Bible  has 
the  most  power  that  the  family  institution  is  most  respected. 
The  Bible  is  the  friend  of  all  that  is  pure,  and  infidelity 
is  the  friend  of  all  that  is  impure.  This  much-abused  Book 
is  the  only  fit  foundation  for  the  household. 

One  of  the  best  families  I  ever  knew  of,  for  thirty  or 
forty  years,  morning  and  evening,  had  all  the  members  gath- 
ered together,  and  the  servants  of  the  household,  and  the 
strangers  that  happened  to  be  within  the  gates — twice  a  day, 
without  leaving  out  a  chapter  or  a  verse,  they  read  this  Holy 
Book,  morning  by  morning,  night  by  night.  Not  onl\'  the 
older  children,  but  the  little  child  who  could  just  spell  her 
way  through  the  verse  while  her  mother  helped  her.  The 
father  beginning  and  reading  one  verse,  and  then  all  the 
members  of  the  family  in  turn  reading  a  verse.  The  father 
maintained   his  integrity,  the  mother  maintained  her  integ- 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  65 

rity,  the  sons  grew  up  and  entered  professions  and  commer- 
cial life,  adorning  every  sphere  in  the  life  in  which  they 
lived,  and  the  daughters  went  into  families  where  Christ  was 
honored,  and  all  that  was  good  and  pure  and  righteous 
reigned  perpetually.  For  thirty  years  that  family  endured 
the  Scriptures.     Not  one  of  them  ruined  by  it. 

Now,  if  you  will  tell  me  of  a  family  where  the  Bible  has 
been  read  twice  a  day  for  thirty  years,  and  the  children  have 
been  brought  up  in  that  habit,  and  the  father  went  to  ruin, 
and  the  mother  went  to  ruin,  and  the  sons  and  daughters 
were  destroyed  by  it — if  you  will  tell  me  of  one  such  inci- 
dent, I  will  throw  away  my  Bible  or  I  will  doubt  your  ve- 
racity. I  tell  you  if  a  man  is  shocked  with  what  he  calls 
the  indelicacies  of  the  Word  of  God,  he  is  prurient  in  his 
taste  and  imagination.  If  a  man  cannot  read  the  book 
Solomon's  Song  without  impure  suggestion,  he  is  either  in 
his  heart,  or  in  his  life,  a  libertine. 

The  Old-Testament  description  of  wickedness,  uncleanli- 
ness  of  all  sorts,  is  purposely  and  righteously  a  disgusting 
account,  instead  of  the  Parisian  vernacular  which  makes  sin 
attractive  instead  of  appalling.  When  those  old  prophets 
point  you  to  a  lazaretto,  you  understand  it  is  a  lazaretto. 
No  gilding  of  iniquity.  No  garlands  on  a  death's  head.  No 
pounding  away  with  a  silver  mallet  at  iniquity  when  it  needs 
an  iron  sledge-hammer. 

I  can  easily  understand  how  people,  brooding  over  the 
description  of  uncleanness  in  the  Bible,  may  get  morbid  in 
mind  until  they  are  as  full  of  it  as  the  wings  and  the  beak 
and  the  nostril  and  the  claw  of  a  buzzard  is  full  of  the  odors 
of  a  carcass  ;  but  what  is  wanted  is  not  that  the  Bible  be 
disinfected,  but  that  you,  the  critic,  have  your  heart  and 
mind  washed  with  carbolic  acid  ! 


POLYGAMY. 

Mr,  Ingersoll  says  to  his  audience  :  "  Is  there  any  man 
here  who  believes  in  polygamy  ?  No.  Then  you  are  better 
than  your  God  :  for  four  thousand  years  ago  He  believed  in 


66  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

it,  and  taught  it,  and  upheld  it."  Docs  the  God  of  the  Bible 
uphold  polygamy?  or  did  He?  How  many  wives  did  God 
make  for  Adam  ?  He  made  one  ivife.  Does  not  your  com- 
mon-sense tell  you  when  God  started  the  marriage  institu- 
tion He  started  it  as  He  wanted  it  to  continue  ?  If  God 
had  favored  polygamy  He  could  have  created  for  Adam  five 
wives,  or  ten  wives,  or  twenty  wives  just  as  easily  as  He 
made  one.  At  the  very  first  of  the  Bible,  God  shows  Him- 
self in  favor  of  monogamy,  and  antagonistic  to  polygamy. 
Genesis  2  :  24  :  "  Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and 
his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife."  Not  his  tvives, 
but  his  xvifc. 

How  many  wives  did  God  spare  for  Noah  in  the  ark? 
Two  and  t\\o  the  birds  :  two  and  two  the  cattle  :  two  and 
two  the  lions:  two  and  two  the  human  race.  If  the  God 
of  the  Bible  had  favored  a  multiplicity  of  wives  He  would 
have  spared  a  plurality  of  wives.  When  God  first  launched 
the  human  race,  He  gave  Adam  one  wife.  At  the  second 
launching  of  the  human  race  He  spares  for  Noah  one  wife, 
for  Ham  one  wife,  for  Sliem  one  wife,  for  Japhet  one  wife. 
Does  that  look  as  though  God  favored  pol}-gamy?  In  Le- 
viticus 18:  18,  God  thunders  His  prohibition  of  more  than 
one  wife. 

God  permitted  polygamy.  Yes ;  just  as  He  permits  to- 
day murder  and  theft  and  arson  and  all  kinds  of  crime.  He 
permits  these  things,  as  you  well  know ;  but  He  does  not 
sanction  them.  Who  would  dare  to  say  He  sanctioned 
them  ?  Because  Presidents  Hayes  and  Garfield  permitted, 
and  President  Harrison  permits,  poh'gamy  in  Utah,  you  are 
not,  therefore,  to  conclude  that  they  patronized  it,  that  they 
approved  it,  when  on  the  contrary  they  denounced  it.  All 
the  Jews  knew  that  the  God  of  the  Bible  was  against  pohg- 
aniy,  for  in  the  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  of  their  stay 
in  Egypt  there  is  only  one  case  of  polygam\'  recorded — only 
one.  All  the  mighty  men  of  the  Bible  stood  aloof  from 
polygamy  except  those  who,  falling  into  the  crime,  were  chas- 
tised within  an  inch  of  their  li\'cs.  Adam,  Aaron,  Noah, 
Joseph,  Joshua,  Samuel,  monogamists. 


INGERSOLLIAX  INFIDELITY   COXFUTEU.  6/ 

But  you  say,  "  Didn't  David  and  Solomon  favor  polyg- 
amy ?"  Yes ;  and  did  they  not  get  well  punished  for  it  ? 
Read  the  lives  of  these  two  men,  and  you  will  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  all  the  attributes  of  God's  nature  were 
against  their  behavior.  David  suffered  for  his  crimes  in 
the  caverns  of  Adullam  and  Masada,  in  the  wilderness  of 
Maon,  in  the  bereavements  of  Ziklag.  The  Bedouins  after 
him,  sickness  after  him,  Absalom  after  him,  Ahithophel  after 
him,  Adonijah  after  him,  the  Edomites  after  him,  the  Syrians 
after  him,  the  Moabites  after  him,  death  after  him,  the  Lord 
God  Almighty  after  him.  The  poorest  peasant  in  all  the 
empire  married  to  the  plainest  Jewess  was  happier  than  the 
king  after  his  liaison  with  Bathsheba. 

Hoiv  did  Solomon  get  along  zvitli  polygamy  ?  Read  his 
warnings  in  Proverbs,  read  his  self-disgust  in  Ecclesiastes. 
He  throws  up  his  hands  in  loathing,  and  cries  out,  "  Vanity 
of  vanities,  all  is  vanity."  His  seven  hundred  wives  nearly 
pestered  the  life  out  of  him.  Solomon  got  well  paid  for  his 
crimes — well  paid.  I  repeat  that  all  the  mighty  men  of  the 
Scriptures  were  aloof  from  polygamy  save  as  they  were 
pounded  and  flailed,  and  cut  to  pieces  for  their  insult  to 
holy  marriage.  Yet  Mr.  Ingersoll,  in  the  face  of  an  audience, 
declares  the  Bible  approves  of  polygamy. 

If  it  does,  why  is  it  that,  in  all  the  lands  where  the  Bible 
predominates,  polygamy  is  forbidden?  and  in  the  lands  where 
there  is  no  Bible,  it  is  favored  ?  Polygamy  all  over  China,  all 
over  India,  all  over  Africa,  all  over  Persia,  all  over  heathen- 
dom save  as  the  missionaries  have  done  their  work  ;  while 
polygamy  does  not  exist  in  England  and  the  United  States, 
except  in  defiance  of  law  as  in  Utah,  from  which  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  and  the  Congress  are  about  to 
eject  it.  The  Bible  abroad,  God-honored  monogamy.  The 
Bible  not  abroad,  God-abhorred  polygamy.  And  yet,  Mr. 
Ingersoll  says  the  Bible  approves  of  polygamy.  I  take  the 
ulcerous  and  accursed  slander  and  hurl  it  back  into  his  blas- 
phemous teeth.  God  is  against  polygamy.  The  Bible  is 
against  polygamy.  All  Christendom  is  against  polygamy. 
Hozv  nmcJi  Mr.  IngersolFs  opinion  of  the  marriage  institution 


68  TKiMPl-.T  PEALS. 

is  worth  1  leave  you  to  judge  when  I  tell  you  that  in  one  of 
his  lectures  he  compares  an  English  authoress  of  blackened 
reputation  with  Queen  Victoria,  to  the  depreciation  of  the 
latter.  In  other  words,  rather  than  Queen  Victoria,  the 
purest  specimen  of  Christian  womanhood  on  any  throne  in 
all  the  earth,  he  prefers  an  authoress  whose  life  was  an 
offence  to  the  marriage  institution,  and  her  example  an  insult 
to  every  pure  woman  in  Christendom. 

As  for  myself  I  have  less  admiration  for  the  literary  adul- 
teress than  I  have  for  her  who  at  nineteen  years  of  age,  in- 
formed that  the  crown  of  England  washers,  knelt  and  asked 
the  Archbishop  to  pray  for  the  blessing  of  God  on  her  reign  ; 
and  who,  rearing  her  princes  and  princesses  in  the  faith  of  the 
Christian  life,  finds  in  her  widowhood  a  consolation  in  that 
Gospel  which  comforted  Prince  Albert  in  his  dying  moments, 
when  with  trembling  lip  in  Windsor  Castle  she  sang  to  him, 
"  Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me."  And  who,  whether  in  plain 
dress  going  out  from  the  castle  at  Balmoral  or  Osborne  to 
read  the  Scripture  to  the  poor  in  the  lane,  or  carrying  some 
delicacy  to  tempt  the  invalid's  appetite,  or  going  down  to 
Chiselhurst  holds  by  the  hand  the  banished  empress  stand- 
ing by  the  casket  of  her  dead  boy,  "  the  only  son  of  his 
mother,  and  she  a  widow  ;"  or  cables  to  the  capital  of  our  na- 
tion her  anxiety  about  our  wounded  chief,  and  then  sits  down 
and  writes  with  her  own  hand  such  comfort  as  only  a  wid- 
owed soul  can  give  a  widowed  soul — always  and  everywhere 
the  same  good,  kind,  sympathetic  Christian  woman,  for 
wliom  we  Americans  and  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen, 
whether  in  earnest  prayer  or  exhilarant  huzza,  are  ready  at 
all  times  to  exclaim,  "  God  save  the  Queen  !" 

woman's  shame  and  iiumili.vtion. 

Mr.  Ingcrsoll  caricatures  and  denounces  the  Bible  be- 
cause, he  says,  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Old  Testament  but 
is  woman's  shame  and  humiliation,  and  then  he  picks  up  the 
Bible  and  reads  a  few  verses  in  the  New  Testament  to  show 
that  the   Bible  all   the   way  through   is   the  degradation  of 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  69 

woman.  Come  now,  let  us  see.  Come  into  the  picture  gal- 
lery, the  Louvre,  the  Luxemburg  of  the  Bible,  and  see 
which  pictures  are  the  more  honored.  Here  is  Eve,  a  per- 
fect woman,  as  perfect  a  woman  as  could  be  made  by  a  per- 
fect God.  Here  is  Deborah,  with  her  womanly  arm  hurling 
a  host  into  the  battle.  Here  is  Miriam,  leading  the  Israel- 
itish  orchestra  on  the  banks  of  the  Red  Sea. 

Here  is  Ruth,  putting  to  shame  all  tJie  vwdcrn  slang  about 
motJicrs-in-lazv  as  she  turns  her  back  on  her  home  and  her 
country,  and  faces  wild  beasts  and  exile  and  death  that  she 
may  be  with  Naomi,  her  husband's  mother  ;  Ruth,  the  queen 
of  the  harvest-fields ;  Ruth,  the  grandmother  of  David ; 
Ruth,  the  ancestress  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  story  of  her  vir- 
tues and  her  life-sacrifice,  the  most  beautiful  pastoral  ever 
written. 

Here  is  Vashti,  defying  the  bacchanal  of  a  thousand 
drunken  lords  ;  and  Esther,  willing  to  throw  her  life  away 
that  she  may  deliver  her  people.  And  here  is  Dorcas,  the 
sunlight  of  eternal  flame  gilding  her  philanthropic  needle  ; 
and  the  woman  with  perfume  in  a  box  made  from  the  hills 
of  alabastron,  pouring  the  holy  chrism  on  the  head  of  Christ, 
the  aroma  lingering  all  down  the  corridor  of  the  centuries. 
Here  is  Lydia,  the  merchantess  of  Tyrian  purple,  immortal- 
ized for  her  Christian  behavior. 

Oh  how  the  Bible  hates  women  !  Who  has  more  worship- 
pers to-day  than  any  being  that  ever  lived  on  earth,  except 
Jesus  Christ?  Mary.  For  what  purpose  did  Christ  perform 
His  first  miracle  upon  earth  ?  To  relieve  the  embarrassment 
of  a  womanly  housekeeper  at  the  falling  short  of  a  beverage. 
Why  did  Christ  break  up  the  silence  of  the  tomb,  and  tear 
off  the  shroud  and  rip  up  the  rocks?  It  was  to  stop  the  be- 
reavement of  the  two  Bethany  sisters.  For  whose  comfort 
was  Christ  most  anxious  in  the  hour  of  dying  excruciation? 
For  a  woman,  an  old  woman,  a  wrinkled-faced  woman,  a 
woman  who  in  other  days  had  held  Him  in  her  arms,  His 
first  friend,  His  last  friend,  as  it  is  very  apt  to  be.  His 
mother.     All  the  pathos  of  the  ages  compressed  into  one 


10  TKUMPET  PEALS. 

utterance,  "  Behold  thy  mother."     Oh  how  the  Bible  hates 
women  I 

If  the  Bible  is  so  antagonistic  to  woman,  how  do  you 
account  for  the  difference  in  woman's  condition  in  China  and 
Central  Africa,  and  her  condition  in  England  and  America? 
There  is  no  difference  except  that  which  the  Bible  makes. 
In  lands  where  there  is  no  Bible,  she  is  hitched  like  a  beast 
of  burden  to  the  ploughs,  she  carries  the  hod,  she  submits  to 
indescribable  indignities.  She  must  be  kept  in  a  private 
apartment,  and  if  she  come  forth  she  must  be  carefully 
hooded  and  religiously  veiled,  as  though  it  were  a  shame  to 
be  a  \Yoman. 

Do  you  know  that  the  very  first  thing  the  Bible  does 
when  it  comes  into  a  new  country  is  to  strike  off  the  shackles 
of  woman's  serfdom  ?  O  woman,  where  are  your  chains  to- 
day? Hold  up  both  your  arms  and  let  us  see  your  hand- 
cuffs. Oh,  we  see  the  handcuffs  :  they  are  bracelets  of  gold, 
bestowed  by  husbandly  or  fatherly  or  brotherly  or  sisterly 
or  loverly  affection.  Loosen  the  warm  robe  from  your  neck, 
O  woman,  and  let  us  see  the  yoke  of  your  bondage.  Oh!  I 
find  the  yoke  is  a  carcanet  of  silver,  or  a  string  of  corneli- 
ans, or  a  cluster  of  pearls  that  must  gall  you  very  much. 
How  bad  you  must  all  have  it  ? 

Since  you  put  the  Bible  on  your  stand  in  the  sitting- 
room,  has  the  Bible  been  to  you,  O  woman,  a  curse  or  a 
blessing?  Why  is  it  that  a  woman  when  she  is  troubled  will 
go  to  her  worst  enemy,  the  Bible?  Why  do  you  not  go  for 
comfort  to  some  of  the  great  infidel  books,  Spinoza's  Ethics, 
or  Hume's  Natural  History  of  Religion,  or  Paine's  Age  of 
Reason,  or  Dedro's  dramas,  or  any  one  of  the  two  hundred  and 
sixty  volumes  of  Voltaire?  No,  the  silly,  deluded  woman 
persists  in  hanging  about  the  Bible  verses,  "  Let  not  your 
heart  be  troubled,"  "All  things  work  together  for  good," 
"  Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night,"  "  I  am  the  resurrec- 
tion," "  Peace,  be  still."  Why  do  more  women  read  the 
Bible  than  men  ?  Because  while  the  Bible  is  a  good  book 
for  a  man,  it  is  a  better  book  for  a  woman,  and  it  has  done 
her  more  good  and  more  kindness,  and  brought  her  more 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELirY  CONFUTED.  Jl 

grace.  The  Bible  is  a  friend  of  man  ;  it  is  a  better  frienO  to 
woman. 

Just  read  some  of  the  cruel  injunctions  this  Bible  gives 
in  regard  to  woman.  See  how  the  Scriptures  maltreat  her 
case.  "  Honor  thy  mother  ;"  "  Husbands,  love  your  wives 
even  as  Christ  loved  the  church  and  gave  himself  for  it ;" 
"  Let  them" — that  is,  the  male  converts — "  let  them  learn 
first  to  show  piety  at  home  ;"  "  She  hath  done  what  she 
could." 

Ah  !  you  know  there  is  not  a  person  in  all  the  house  to- 
day but  knows  that  the  Bible  is  woman's  emancipation, 
woman's  eulogy,  woman's  joy,  woman's  heaven  ; — and  yet  Mr. 
IngersoU  stands  in  the  presence  of  an  audience  and  declares 
that  the  Bible  is  woman's  shame,  woman's  degradation,  wo- 
man's enemy,  and  one  thousand  idiots  clap  their  hands  in 
commendation  ! 


COUNTER-CHARGES  AGAINST  INGERSOLLISM. 

The  plaintiff.  Infidelity,  has  not  made  out  its  case 
against  the  Bible,  the  defendant ;  and  I  might  in  the  court  of 
your  reason  move  for  a  nonsuit,  but  I  will  rather  turn  the 
tables  upon  him  and  bring  him  to  the  bar.  And  I  here 
and  now  charge  him  with  Jehoiakim's  folly.  "  When  Jehudi 
had  read  three  or  four  leaves,  he  cut  it  with  the  penknife." — 
Jekemiah  36:23. 

There  sits  Jehoiakim  in  the  winter-house,  his  feet  to  the 
fire,  which  is  blazing  and  crackling  on  the  hearth.  His  private 
secretary,  Jehudi,  is  reading  to  him  from  a  scroll  containing 
God's  word  to  Jeremiah.  Jehoiakim  is  displeased  at  the 
message,  gets  very  red  in  the  face,  jumps  up  and  snatches 
the  scroll  from  the  hand  of  his  private  secretary,  takes  out 
his  penknife,  and  cuts  and  slashes  it  all  to  pieces. 

Jehoiakim  was  under  the  impression  that  if  he  destroyed 
the  scroll  he  would  destroy  the  prophecy.  Ah  I  no.  Jere- 
miah immediately  takes  another  scroll  and  the  prophecy  is 
redictated.     The  fact  is  that  all  the  penknifes  ever  made  at 


72  ,  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

Sheffield  and  in  all  the  cutleries  of  the  world  cannot  success- 
fully destroy  the  Scriptures. 

THE   MODERN   JEIIOIAKIM. 

We  have  a  JcJioiakitn  in  our  day,  Mr.  Ingersoll,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  infidelity  of  the  hour,  who  proposes  with  his 
penknife  to  hack  the  Word  of  God  to  pieces.  With  that 
penknife  he  tries  to  stab  Moses,  and  to  stab  Joshua,  and  to 
stab  all  the  prophets  and  apostles,  and  evangelists,  and  to 
stab  Christ,  and  to  stab  the  God  of  the  Bible ;  but  while  he 
is  cutting  to  pieces  his  own  copy  of  the  Bible — for  I  suppose 
he  has  only  one  copy  of  this  dangerous  book  in  his  house, 
and  that  carefully  guarded  and  locked  up  so  none  of  his 
friends  may  be  poisoned  by  it— there  are  innumerable  cop- 
ies of  the  Bible  being  distributed. 

No  book,  secular  or  religious,  ever  multiplied  with  such 
speed  and  into  such  vastness  as  the  Word  of  God, — Disraeli's 
"  Endymion,"  Macaulay's  "  History  of  England,"  Shake- 
speare's tragedies,  having  very  small  and  limited  reading, 
and  very  small  and  limited  sale  and  distribution  as  compared 
with  this  Book ;  which,  after  for  centuries  being  bombarded 
by  thousands  of  Ingersolls,  to-day  has  abroad  over  three 
hundred  millions  of  copies.  Where  one  Bible  dies  ten  thou- 
sand Bibles  are  born.  Cut  away,  then,  with  your  infidel  pen- 
knives. 

Mr.  Ingersoll,  with  his  knife-blade,  proposes  to  cut  the 
Bible  to  pieces  in  ridicule.  Now,  I  like  fun  ;  no  man  was 
ever  built  with  a  keener  appreciation  of  it.  There  is  health 
in  laughter  instead  of  harm — physical  health,  mental  health, 
moral  health,  spiritual  health — provided  you  laugJi  at  the  rigJit 
thing. 

But  there  is  a  laughter  which  is  deathful,  there  is  a  laugh- 
ter which  has  the  rebound  of  despair.  It  is  not  healthful  to 
giggle  about  God,  or  chuckle  about  eternity,  or  smirk  about 
the  things  of  the  immortal  soul.  What  caused  the  accident 
some  time  ago  on  the  Hudson  River  Railroad?  It  was  an 
intoxicated  man  who  for  a  joke  pulled  the  string  of  the  air- 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  Jl 

brake  and  stopped  the  train  at  the  most  dangerous  point  of 
the  journey.     But  the  hghtning  train,  not  knowing  there  was 
any  impediment  in  the  way,  came  down,  crushing  out  of  the 
mangled  victims  the  immortal  souls  that  went  speeding  in 
stantly  to  God  and  judgment.     It  zvas  only  a  joke. 

And  so  Mr,  IngersoU  is  chiefly  anxious  to  stop  the  long 
train  of  the  Bible,  and  the  long  train  of  the  churches,  and 
the  long  train  of  Christian  influences,  while  coming  down 
upon  us  are  death,  judgment,  and  eternity,  coming  a  thou- 
sand miles  a  minute,  coming  with  more  force  than  all  the 
avalanches  that  ever  slipped  from  the  Alps,  coming  with 
more  strength  than  all  the  lightning  express  trains  than  ever 
whistled,  or  shrieked,  or  thundered  across  the  continent. 
Stop!  says  Mr.  IngersoU,  it  is  only  a  joke.  It  is  a  spectacle 
which  almost  splits  him  with  laughter.  It  is  a  subject  which, 
though  agonizing  the  nations,  throws  him  into  uproars  of 
laughter;  and  the  theme  of  his  funniest  lecture  is  the  most 
stupendous  question  that  was  ever  asked — "  What  must  I  do 
to  be  saved?" 


INFIDELITY  AND   SUICIDE. 

There  is  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the  story 
of  a  would-be  suicide  arrested  in  his  deadly  attempt.  He 
was  a  sheriff,  and  according  to  the  Roman  law  a  bailiff  him- 
self must  suffer  the  punishment  due  an  escaped  prisoner; 
and  if  the  prisoner  breaking  jail  was  sentenced  to  be  endun- 
geoned  for  three  or  four  years,  then  the  sheriff  must  be  en- 
dungeoned  for  three  or  four  years  ;  and  if  the  prisoner  break- 
ing jail  was  to  have  suffered  capital  punishment,  then  the 
sheriff  must  suffer  capital  punishment.  The  sheriff  had  re- 
ceived especial  charge  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  Paul  and 
Silas.  The  government  had  not  had  confidence  in  bolts  and 
bars  to  keep  safe  these  two  clergymen,  about  whom  there 
seemed  to  be  something  strange  and  supernatural. 

Sure  enough,  by  miraculous  power,  they  are  free,  and  the 
sheriff,  waking  out  of  a  sound  sleep,  and  supposing  these 
ministers  have  run  away,  and  knowing  that  they  were  to  die 


74  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

for  preaching  Christ,  and  realizing  that  he  must  therefore 
die,  rather  than  go  under  the  executioner's  axe  on  the  mor- 
row and  suffer  public  disgrace,  resolves  to  precipitate  his  own 
decease.  But  before  the  sharp,  keen,  glittering  dagger  of 
the  sheriff  could  strike  his  heart  one  of  the  loosened  prison- 
ers arrests  the  blade  by  the  command,  "  Do  thyself  no  harm." 
In  olden  time,  and  where  Christianity  had  not  interfered 
Avith  it,  suicide  was  considered  honorable  and  a  sign  of  cour- 
age. Demosthenes  poisoned  himself  when  told  that  Alex- 
ander's ambassador  had  demanded  the  surrender  of  the 
Athenian  orators.  Isocrates  killed  himself  rather  than  sur- 
render to  Philip  of  Macedon.  Cato,  rather  than  submit  to 
Julius  Caesar,  took  his  own  life,  and  after  three  times  his 
wounds  had  been  dressed  tore  them  open  and  perished. 
Mithridates  killed  himself  rather  than  submit  to  Pompey, 
the  conqueror.  Hannibal  destroyed  his  life  by  poison  from 
his  ring,  considering  life  unbearable.  Lycurgus  a  suicide, 
Brutus  a  suicide.  After  the  disaster  of  Moscow,  Napoleon 
always  carried  with  him  a  preparation  of  opium,  and  one 
ni^lit  his  servant  heard  the  ex-emperor  arise,  put  something 
in  a  glass  and  drink  it,  and  soon  after  the  groans  aroused  all 
the  attendants,  and  it  was  only  through  utmost  medical  skill 
he  was  resuscitated  from  the  stupor  of  the  opiate. 

Times  have  changed,  and  yet  the  American  conscience 
needs  to  be  toned  up  on  the  subject  of  suicide.  God  gave 
you  a  special  trust  in  your  life.  He  made  you  the  custodian 
of  your  life  as  He  made  you  the  custodian  of  no  other  life. 
He  gave  you  as  weapons  with  which  to  defend  it  two  arms 
to  strike  back  assailants,  two  eyes  to  watch  for  invasion,  and 
a  natural  love  of  life. 

To  show  how  God  in  the  Bible  looked  upon  this  crime, 
I  point  you  to 

THE   rogues'    nCTURE-GALI.ERY 

in  some  parts  of  the  Bible,  the  pictures  of  the  people  who 
have  committed  this  unnatural  crime.  Here  is  the  headless 
trunk  of  Saul  on  the  walls  of  Bethshan.     Here  is  the  man 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  75 

who  chased  little  David — ten  feet  in  stature  chasing  four. 
Here  is  the  man  who  consulted  a  clairvoyant,  Witch  of  Endor. 
Here  is  a  man  who,  whipped  in  battle,  instead  of  surrender- 
ing his  sword  with  dignity,  as  many  a  man  has  done,  asks  his 
servant  to  slay  him  ;  and  when  the  servant  declines,  then  the 
king  plants  the  hilt  of  the  sword  in  the  earth,  the  sharp 
point  sticking  upward,  and  he  throws  his  body  on  it  and  ex- 
pires, the  coward,  the  suicide.  Here  is  Ahithophel,  the 
Machiavelli  of  olden  times,  betraying  his  best  friend  David 
in  order  that  he  may  become  prime  minister  of  Absalom,  and 
joining  that  fellow  in  his  attempt  at  parricide.  Not  getting 
what  he  wanted  by  change  of  politics,  he  takes  a  short  cut 
out  of  a  disgraced  life  into  the  suicide's  eternity.  There  he 
is,  the  ingrate ! 

Here  is  Abimelech,  practically  a  suicide.  He  is  with  an 
army,  bombarding  a  tower,  when  a  woman  in  the  tower  takes 
a  grindstone  from  its  place  and  drops  it  upon  his  head,  and 
with  what  life  he  has  left  in  his  cracked  skull  he  commands 
his  armor-bearer,  "  Draw  thy  sword  and  slay  me,  lest  men 
say  a  woman  slew  me."  There  is  his  post-mortem  photo- 
graph in  the  Book  of  Samuel.  But  the  hero  of  this  group 
is  Judas  Iscariot.  Dr.  Donne  says  he  was  a  martyr,  and  we 
have  in  our  day  apologists  for  him.  And  what  wonder,  in 
this  day  when  we  have  a  book  revealing  Aaron  Burr  as  a 
pattern  of  virtue,  and  in  this  day  when  we  uncover  a  statue 
to  George  Sand  as  the  benefactress  of  literature,  and  in  this 
day  when  there  are  betrayals  of  Christ  on  the  part  of  some 
of  His  pretended  apostles — a  betrayal  so  black  it  makes  the 
infamy  of  Judas  Iscariot  white !  Yet  this  man  by  his  own 
hand  hung  up  for  the  execration  of  all  the  ages,  Judas 
Iscariot. 

All  the  good  men  and  women  of  the  Bible  left  to  God 
the  decision  of  their  earthly  terminus,  and  they  could  have 
said  with  Job,  who  had  a  right  to  commit  suicide  if  any  man 
ever  had — what  with  his  destroyed  property,  and  his  body 
all  aflame  with  insufferable  carbuncles,  and  everything  gone 
from  his  home  except  the  chief  curse  of  it,  a  pestiferous  wife, 
and  four  garrulous  people  pelting  liim  with  comfortless  talk 


"i^i  TRUMPET  TEALS 

while  he  sits  on  a  heap  of  ashes  scratching  his  scabs  with  a 
piece  of  broken  pottery,  yet  crying  out  in  triumph,  "  All  the 
days  of  my  appointed  time  will  I  wait  till  my  change  come." 
And  I  therefore  table  this  charge  against  infidelity  as  tend- 
ing to  increase  suicide  and  other  crimes. 

If  there  be  no  hereafter,  or  if  that  hereafter  be  blissful 
without  reference  to  how  we  live  and  how  we  die,  why  not 
move  back  the  folding-doors  between  this  world  and  the 
next  ?  And  when  our  existence  here  becomes  troublesome, 
why  not  pass  right  over  into  Elysium?  Put  this  down 
among  your  most  solemn  reflections,  and  consider  it  after 
you  go  to  your  homes ;  there  has  never  been  a  case  of  sui- 
cide where  the  operator  was  not  either  demented,  and  there- 
fore irresponsible,  or  an  infidel,  I  challenge  all  the  ages, 
and  I  challenge  the  whole  universe.  There  never  has  been 
a  case  of  self-destruction  while  in  full  appreciation  of  his 
immortality,  and  of  the  fact  that  that  immortality  would  be 
glorious  or  wretched  according  as  he  accepted  Jesus  Christ 
or  rejected  Him. 

You  say  it  is  business  trouble,  or  you  say  it  is  electrical 
currents,  or  it  is  this,  or  it  is  that,  or  it  is  the  other  thing. 
Why  not  go  clear  back,  my  friend,  and  acknowledge  that  in 
every  case  it  is  the  abdication  of  reason  or  the  teaching  of 
infidelity  which  practically  says  :  ''  If  you  don't  like  this  life 
got  out  of  it,  and  you  will  land  cither  in  annihilation,  where 
there  are  no  notes  to  pay,  no  persecutions  to  suffer,  no  gout 
to  torment,  or  you  will  land  where  there  will  be  everything 
glorious,  and  nothing  to  pay  for  it."  Infidelity  always  has 
been  apologetic  for  self-immolation.  After  Tom  Paine's 
"  Age  of  Reason"  was  published  and  widely  read,  there  was 
a  marked  increase  of  self-slaughter. 

A  man  in  London  heard  Mr.  Owen  deliver  his  infidel  lec- 
ture on  Socialism,  and  went  home,  sat  down,  and  wrote 
these  words,  "  Jesus  Christ  is  one  of  the  weakest  characters 
in  history,  and  the  Bible  is  the  greatest  possible  deception," 
and  then  shot  himself.  David  Hume  wrote  these  words  :  *'  It 
would  be  no  crime  for  me  to  divert  the  Nile  or  Danube  from 
its  natural  bed.     Where,  then,  can   be  the  crime  in   ni)'  di- 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  7/ 

verting  a  few  drops  of  blood  from  their  ordinary  channel?" 
And  having  written  the  essay  he  loaned  it  to  a  friend,  the 
friend  read  it,  wrote  a  letter  of  thanks  and  admiration,  and 
shot  himself.     Appendix  to  the  same  book. 

Rousseau,  Voltaire,  Gibbon,  Montaigne,  under  certain 
circumstances,  were  apologetic  for  self-immolation.  Infidel- 
ity puts  up  no  bar  to  people's  rushing  out  from  this  world 
into  the  next.  They  teach  us  it  does  not  make  any  differ- 
ence how  you  live  here  or  go  out  of  this  world,  you  will 
land  either  in  an  oblivious  nowhere  or  a  glorious  somewhere. 
And  Infidelity  holds  the  upper  end  of  the  rope  for  the  sui- 
cide, and  aims  the  pistol  with  which  a  man  blows  his  brains 
out,  and  mixes  the  strychnine  for  the  last  swallow.  If  Infi- 
delity could  carry  the  day  and  persuade  the  majority  of 
people  in  this  country  that  it  docs  not  make  any  difference 
how  you  go  out  of  the  world  you  will  land  safely,  the  Hud- 
son and  the  East  rivers  would  be  so  full  of  corpses  the  ferry- 
boats would  be  impeded  in  their  progress,  and  the  crack  of 
a  suicide's  pistol  would  be  no  more  alarming  than  the  rum- 
ble of  a  street  car. 

I  have  sometimes  heard  it  discussed  whether  the  great 
dramatist  was  a  Christian  or  not.  I  do  not  know ;  but  I 
know  that  he  considered  appreciation  of  a  future  existence 
the  mightiest  hindrance  to  self-destruction  : 

"  For  who  could  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 
The  pangs  of  despis'd  love,  the  law's  delay, 
The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin  ?     Who  would  fardels  bear. 
To  grunt  and  sweat  under  a  weary  life. 
But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death — 
The  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveller  returns — puzzles  the  will  ?" 

Would  God  that  the  coroners  would  be  brave  in  ren- 
dering the  right  verdict,  and  Avhen,  in  a  case  of  irresponsi- 
bility they  say  "While  this  man  was  demented  he  took  his 


78  TKl'MTET  PEALS. 

life,"  in  the  Other  case  say  "  Having  read  infidel  books  and 
attended  infidel  lectures,  which  obliterated  from  this  man's 
mind  all  appreciation  of  anything  like  future  retribution,  he 
committed  self-slaughter !" 

Ah!  Infidelity,  stand  up  and  take  thy  sentence!  In  the 
presence  of  God  and  angels  and  men,  stand  up,  thou  mon- 
ster, thy  lip  blasted  with  blasphemy,  thy  cheek  scarred  with 
lust,  thy  breath  foul  with  the  corruption  of  the  ages  !  Stand 
up,  Satyr,  filthy  goat,  buzzard  of  the  nations,  leper  of  the 
centuries!  Stand  up,  thou  monster  Infidelity!  Part  man, 
part  panther,  part  reptile,  part  dragon,  stand  up  and  take 
thy  sentence !  Thy  hands  red  with  the  blood  in  which  thou 
hast  washed,  thy  feet  crimson  with  the  human  gore  through 
which  thou  hast  waded,  stand  up  and  take  thy  sentence  ! 
Down  with  thee  to  the  pit  and  sup  on  the  sobs  and  groans 
of  families  thou  hast  blasted,  and  roll  on  the  bed  of  knives 
which  thou  has  sharpened  for  others,  and  let  thy  music  be 
the  everlasting  miserere  of  those  whom  thou  hast  damned  I 
I  brand  the  forehead  of  Infidelity  with  all  the  crimes  of  self- 
immolation  for  the  last  century  on  the  p.art  of  those  who 
had  their  reason. 

Ah  !  you  and  I  may  give  our  fifty  cents  or  our  dollar  to 
hear  Mr.  IngersoU's  lecture,  in  which  the  Bible  is  caricatured 
and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  insulted  ;  but  I  tell  you  plainly 
the  time  will  come  when  we  would  give  the  whole  earth,  if 
we  owned  it,  for  the  cheer  of  its  promises,  and  the  whole 
universe,  if  we  could,  for  the  smile  of  His  love.  How  black 
and  terrible  is  departure  from  this  life  without  this  Gospel. 
One  who  had  served  the  world  and  jeered  at  Christianity, 
and  pronounced  the  Bible  a  cheat  and  a  humbug,  in  the  last 
hour  said  :  "  It  is  so  dark  !  it  is  so  dark  !  it  is  so  dark." 

On  the  day  when  the  coflfin  goes  out  of  the  front  door, 
and  down  the  front  steps,  it  leaves  a  house  very  lonesome  if 
there  be  no  Bible  on  the  stand  and  no  Christ  to  stand  at  the 
desolated  hearthstone. 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  79 


THE   MEANNESS   OF   INFIDELITY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  demonstrates  the  meanness  of  infidelity  by 
satirizing  his  early  home,  and  leaving  the  people  of  this 
country  under  the  impression  that  his  father  at  least  was  a 
bigot,  and  a  tyrant,  and  a  fool.  Now,  can  you  imagine  any- 
thing meaner  than  the  assailing  of  a  parent's  reputation 
after  he  is  dead  and  gone  ?  I  had  a  Christian  ancestry  of 
elevated  type;  but  suppose  my  father  or  mother  had  been 
hypocritical  and  tyrannical,  and  bigoted,  and  bad — would  it 
not  have  been  debasing  in  me  to  have  hooked  up  the  horses 
to  the  ploughshare  of  contempt,  and  turned  up  the  mounds 
of  their  graves  ? 

Far  better  the  conduct  of  Shem  and  Japhet,  who  at 
their  father's  inebriation  took  a  mantle  and  walked  back- 
ward, and  with  averted  eyes  threw  it  over  him  to  hide  the 
shame.  But  while  Mr.  Ingersoll  leads  his  audiences  to  believe 
that  his  father  was  a  tyrant  and  a  bigot,  why  does  he  not 
say  something  about  his  mother?  All  the  accounts  agree 
in  saying  she  was  a  grandly  good  Christian  woman.  Why 
does  he  not  tell  us  the  source  of  her  goodness?  Where  is 
the  Bible  she  used  to  read  ?  Is  it  still  in  the  family  ?  Why 
does  he  not  extol  her  Christian  graces?  How  did  religion 
seem  to  agree  with  her?  Did  the  Christian  religion  make 
her  cross,  and  sour,  and  queer,  and  crabbed  ?  or  did  it  make 
her  kind,  and  genial,  and  loving,  and  patient?  Did  it  give 
her  comfort  in  the  days  of  trouble  ?  Was  she  deluded  with 
it  to  the  last  ?  In  her  dying-hour  was  it  a  pest  or  an  en- 
couragement? Amid  all  the  flowers  of  rhetoric  can  he  not 
twist  one  garland  for  her  memory? 

Oh,  it  is  insufferably  mean,  it  is  accursedly  mean,  that  a 
man  should  throw  a  cloud  of  obloquy  on  his  early  home 
when  there  was  at  least  one  parent  who  loved  God,  kept  His 
commandments,  and  lived  a  grandly  beautiful  and  useful 
life.  I  stand  at  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  of  that  Christian 
mother  and  I  cry  out  for  justice  from  the  infidel  lecturer. 
Oh,  ungrateful  man,  you    are    nothing  to    the   bosom  that 


8o  TKUMPET  PEALS. 

nursed  you,  and  the  arm  that  encircled  you,  and  the  lips  that 
prayed  for  you,  and  the  hands  that  were  blistered  for  you, 
and  the  shoulders  that  stooped  to  carry  your  burdens.  You 
do  not  believe  in  the  Bible,  you  do  not  believe  in  the  God 
of  the  Bible :  do  you  believe  in  your  mother? 

I  do  not  implead  you  by  John  Calvin's  God,  for  you  say 
he  is  a  fiend  ;  I  do  not  implead  you  by  John  Wesley's  God, 
for  you  say  he  is  a  fanatic  ;  I  do  not  implead  you  by  the 
God  of  the  Westminster  Catechism  ;  I  do  not  implead  you 
by  your  father's  God  ; — but  I  implead  you  by  your  mother's 
God.  By  the  birth-pang  that  launched  you,  by  the  Chris- 
tian cradle  that  rocked  you,  by  the  solemn  hour  in  which 
you  were  held  up  in  the  old  country  meeting-house  while 
the  minister  of  religion  said,  "  Robert,  I  baptize  thee  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost," 
— by  that  God  I  implead  you  to  reconsider,  and  turn  and 
live, 

Mr.  Ingersoll  also  shows  the  meanness  of  infidelity  by 
trying  to  substitute  for  the  chief  consolation  of  the  world 
absolutely  nothing.  You  have  only  to  hear  him  at  the  edge 
of  the  grave,  or  at  the  edge  of  the  cofifin,  discoursing,  to  find 
out  that  there  is  no  comfort  in  infidelity.  There  is  more 
good  cheer  in  the  hooting  of  an  owl  at  midnight  than  in  his 
discourses  at  the  verge  of  the  grave.  You  might  as  well  ask 
the  spirit  of  eternal  darkness  to  discourse  on  the  brightness 
of  everlasting  day.  You  know  there  are  millions  of  people 
who  get  their  chief  consolation  from  this  Holy  Book.  Now, 
Mr.  Ingersoll  proposes  to  take  away  that  consolation.  What 
do  you  think  of  it?  What  would  you  think  of  a  crusade  of 
this  sort  ?  Suppose  a  man  should  resolve  that  he  would 
organize  a  conspiracy  to  destroy  all  the  medicines  from  all 
the  apothecaries  and  from  all  the  hospitals  of  the  earth. 
The  work  is  done.  The  medicines  are  taken  and  they  are 
thrown  into  the  river,  or  the  lake,  or  the  sea.  A  patient 
wakes  up  at  midnight  in  a  paroxysm  of  distress  and  wants 
an  anodyne.  "  Oh,"  says  the  nurse,  "the  anodynes  are  all 
destroyed — we  have  no  drops  to  give  you  ;  but  instead  of 
that  I'll  read  you  a  lecture  on  the  absurdities  of  morphine, 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  8 1 

and  on  the  absurdities  of  all  remedies."  But  the  man  con- 
tinues to  writhe  in  pain,  and  the  nurse  says:  "I'll  continue 
to  read  you  some  discourses  on  anodynes — the  cruelties  of 
anodynes,  the  indecencies  of  anodynes,  the  absurdities  of 
anodynes.     For  your  groan  I'll  give  you  a  laugh." 

Here  in  the  hospital  is  a  patient  having  a  gangrened  limb 
amputated.  He  says,  *'  Oh  for  ether  !  Oh  for  chloroform  !" 
The  doctors  say,  "  Why,  they  are  all  destroyed  ;  we  don't 
have  any  more  chloroform  or  ether ;  but  I  have  got  some- 
thing a  great  deal  better.  I'll  read  you  a  lecture  on  the 
mistakes  of  James  Y.  Simpson,  the  discoverer  of  cloroform  as 
an  anaesthetic,  and  upon  the  mistakes  of  Doctors  Agnew, 
and  Hamilton,  and  Hosack,  and  Mott,  and  Harvey,  and 
Abernethy."  "  But,"  says  the  man,  "  I  must  have  some 
anaesthetics."  "  No,"  say  the  doctors,  "  they  are  all  de- 
stroyed ;  but  we  have  got  something  a  great  deal  better." 
"  What  is  that  ?"  "Fun."     Fun  about  medicines. 

Lie  down,  all  ye  patients  in  Bellevue  Hospital,  and  stop 
your  groaning — all  ye  broken-hearted  of  all  the  cities,  and 
quit  your  crying ;  we  have  the  cathohcon  at  last !  Here  is 
a  dose  of  wit,  here  is  a  strengthening-plaster  of  sarcasm,  here 
is  a  bottle  of  ribaldry  that  you  are  to  keep  well  shaken  up 
and  take  a  spoonful  of  after  each  meal ;  and  if  that  does  not 
cure  you,  here  is  a  solution  of  blasphemy  in  which  you  may 
bathe,  and  here  is  a  tincture  of  derision.  Tickle  the  skeleton 
of  death  with  a  repartee  !  Make  the  King  of  Terrors  cackle ! 
For  all  the  agonies  of  all  the  ages,  a  joke  I 

Millions  of  people  willing  with  uplifted  hand  toward 
heaven  to  affirm  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  full  of 
consolation  for  them,  and  yet  Mr.  Ingersoll  proposes  to 
take  it  away,  giving  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  except  fun. 
Is  there  any  greater  height,  or  depth,  or  length,  or  breadth, 
or  immensity  of  meanness  in  all  God's  universe ! 

Mr.  Ingersoll  still  further  demonstrates  the  meanness  of 
infidelity  by  trying  to  substitute  for  the  Bible-explanation 
of  the  future  world  a  religion  of  "  don't  know."  Is  there  a 
God?  Don't  know  !  Is  the  soul  immortal?  Don't  know  ! 
If  we  should  meet  each  other  in  the   future  world  will  we 


82  TKVMl'ET  PEALS. 

recognize  each  other?  Don't  know!  This  man  proposes 
to  substitute  the  religion  of  "  don't  know"  for  the  religion  of 
"  /  knozi>r  "  I  know  in  whom  I  have  bchevcd,"  "  I  know 
that  my  Redeemer  Hveth."  Infidelity  proposes  to  substi- 
tute a  religion  of  awful  negatives  for  our  religion  of  glorious 
positives  showing  right  before  us  a  world  of  reunion  and 
ecstasy,  and  high  companionship,  and  glorious  worship,  and 
stupendous  victory;  the  mightiest  joy  of  earth  not  high 
enough  to  reach  to  the  base  of  the  Himalaya  of  uplifted 
splendor  awaiting  all  those  who  on  wing  of  Christian  faith 
will  soar  toward  it. 

Have  you  heard  of  the  co7ispiracy  to  put  out  all  tJic  light- 
houses on  the  coast?  Do  you  know  that  on  a  certain  night 
of  next  month  Eddystone  Lighthouse,  Bell  Rock  Light- 
house, Skerryvore  Lighthouse,  Montauk  Lighthouse,  Hat- 
teras  Lighthouse,  New  London  Lighthouse,  Barnegat  Light- 
house, and  the  640  lighthouses  on  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
coasts  are  to  be  extinguished?  "Oh,"  you  say,  "what  will 
become  of  the  ships  on  that  night?  What  will  be  the  fate 
of  the  one  million  sailors  following  the  sea?  What  will  be 
the  doom  of  the  millions  of  passengers?  Who  will  arise  to 
put  down  such  a  conspiracy?"  Every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  America  and  the  world. 

But  that  is  onl)'  a  fable.  That  is  what  infidelity  is  trying 
to  do — put  out  all  the  lighthouses  on  the  coast  of  eternity, 
letting  the  soul  go  up  the  "  Narrows"  of  death  with  no  light, 
no  comfort,  no  peace — all  that  coast  covered  with  the  black, 
ness  of  darkness.  Instead  of  the  great  lighthouse,  a  glow, 
worm  of  wit,  a  fire-fly  of  jocosity.  Which  do  )ou  like  the 
better,  oh  voyager  for  eternity — the  fire-fly  or  the  light- 
house? What  a  mission  Infidelity  has  started  on  !  The  ex- 
tinguishment of  lighthouses,  the  breaking  up  of  lifeboats, 
the  dismissal  of  all  the  pilots,  the  turning  of  the  inscription 
on  your  child's  grave  into  a  farce  and  a  lie. 

Walter  Scott's  "  Old  Mortality,"  chisel  in  hand,  went 
through  the  land  to  cut  out  into  plainer  letters  the  half-ob- 
literated inscriptions  on  the  tombstones,  and  it  was  a  beau- 
tiful mission.      But  I\Ir.  IngersoU  is  spending  his  life,  and 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY   CONFUTED.  83 

the  men  who  arc  like  him  are  spending  their  hves,  with 
hammer  and  chisel,  trying  to  cut  out  from  the  tombstones 
of  your  dead  all  the  story  of  resurrection  and  Heaven.  He 
is  the  iconoclast  of  every  village  graveyard,  and  of  every 
city  cemetery,  and  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Instead  of 
Christian  consolation  for  the  dying,  a  freezing  sneer  ;  instead 
of  prayer,  a  grimace  ;  instead  of  Paul's  triumphant  defiance 
of  death,  a  going  out  you  know  not  where,  to  stop  you  know 
not  when,  to  do  you  know  not  what.  That  is  infidelity — 
the  boast  of  the  CHAMPION  ICONOCLAST  of  America. 


NO   SUBSTITUTE  FUR  CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS. 

To  show  that  infidelity  can  provide  no  substitute  for 
what  it  proposes  to  destroy,  I  ask  you  to  mention  the  names 
of  the  merciful  and  the  educational  institutions  which  infi- 
delity founded,  and  is  supporting,  and  has  supported  all  the 
way  through  ;  institutions  pronounced  against  God  and  the 
Christian  religion  and  yet  pronounced  in  behalf  of  suffering 
humanity.  What  are  the  names  of  them  ?  Certainly  not 
the  United  States  Christian  Commission,  or  the  Sanitary 
Commission  ;  for  Christian  George  H.  Stuart  was  the  presi- 
dent of  the  one,  and  Christian  Henry  W.  Bellows  was  the 
president  of  the  other.  Where  are  the  asylums  and  merciful 
institutions  founded  by  Infidelity  and  supported  by  Infidel- 
ity, pronounced  against  God  and  the  Bible,  and  yet  doing 
work  for  the  alleviation  of  suffering  ?  Infidelity  is  so  very 
loud  in  its  braggadocio  it  must  have  some  to  mention. 

Certainly  if  you  come  to  speak  of  educational  institutions 
it  is  not  Yale,  it  is  not  Harvard,  it  is  not  Princeton,  it  is  not 
Middletown  ;  it  is  not  Cambridge  or  Oxford;  it  is  not  any 
institution  from  which  a  diploma  would  not  be  a  disgrace. 
Do  you  point  to  the  German  universities  as  exceptions?  I 
have  to  tell  you  that  all  the  German  universities  to-day  are 
under  positive  Christian  influences,  except  the  University  of 
Heidelberg,  where  the  ruffianly  students  cut  and  maul  and 
mangle  and  murder  each  other  as  a  matter  of  pride  instead 


84  TA'L'.U/'KT  PEAI.S. 

of  infamy.     The  duello  is  the  chief  characteristic  of  that  in- 
stitution. 

There  stands  Christianity.  There  stands  Infidelity.  Com- 
pare what  they  have  done.  Compare  their  resources.  There 
is  Christianit)',  a  prayer  on  her  lip  ;  a  benediction  on  her 
brow;  both  hands  full  of  help  for  all  who  want  help;  the 
mother  of  thousands  of  colleges ;  the  mother  of  thousands 
of  asylums  for  the  oppressed,  the  blind,  the  sick,  the  lame, 
the  imbecile ;  the  mother  of  missions  for  the  bringing  back 
of  the  outcast ;  the  mother  of  thousands  of  reformatory  in- 
stitutions for  the  saving  of  the  lost ;  the  mother  of  innumer- 
able Sabbath-schools  bringing  millions  of  children  under  a 
drill  to  prepare  them  for  respectability  and  usefulness,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  great  future.     That  is  Christianity. 

IMPEACHMENT   OF   INFIDELITY. 

Here  is  Infidelity  ;  no  prayer  on  her  lips,  no  benediction 
on  her  brow,  both  hands  clenched — what  for  ?  To  fight 
Christianity.  That  is  the  entire  business,  the  complete 
mission,  of  Infidelity — to  fight  Christianity.  Where  are  her 
schools,  her  colleges,  her  asylums  of  mercy  ?  Let  me  throw 
you  down  a  whole  ream  of  foolscap  paper  that  you  may  fill 
all  of  it  with  the  names  of  her  beneficent  institutions,  the 
colleges  and  the  asylums,  the  institutions  of  mercy  and  of 
learning,  founded  by  Infidelity  and  supported  alone  by  Infi- 
delity, pronounced  against  God  and  the  Christian  religion 
and  yet  in  favor  of  making  the  world  better.  "  Oh."  you 
say,  "  a  ream  of  paper  is  too  much  for  the  names  of  those  in- 
stitutions." Well,  then,  I  throw  you  a  quire  of  paper.  Fill 
it  all  up  now.  I  will  wait  until  you  get  all  the  names  down. 
"  Oh,"  you  say,  "that  is  too  much."  Well,  then,  I  will  just 
hand  you  a  sJieet  of  letter-paper. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "that  is  too  much." 

Perhaps  I  better  tear  out  one  leaf  from  my  hymn-book 
and  ask  you  to  fill  up  both  sides  of  it  with  the  names  of  such 
institutions.     "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  that  would  be  too  much." 

Well,  then,  suppose  )Ou  count  them  on  )our  ten  fingers. 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  85 

"  Oh,"  you  say,  "  not  quite  so  much  as  that."  Well,  then, 
count  them  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  we 
don't  want  quite  so  much  room  as  that."  Suppose,  men, 
you  halt  and  count  on  one  finger  the  name  of  any  institution 
founded  by  Infidelity,  supported  entirely  by  Infidelity,  pro 
nounced  against  God  and  the  Christian  religion,  yet  toiling 
to  make  the  world  better.     Not  one  !     Not  one ! 

Is  infidelity  so  poor,  so  starveling,  so  mean,  so  useless? 
Get  out,  you  miserable  pauper  of  the  universe  !  Crawl  into 
some  rat-hole  of  everlasting  nothingness.  Infidelity  stand- 
ing to-day  amid  the  suffering,  groaning,  dying  nations  and 
yet  doing  absolutely  nothing  save  trying  to  impede  those 
who  are  toiling  until  they  fall  exhausted  into  their  graves  in 
trying  to  make  the  world  better.  Gather  up  all  the  work, 
all  the  merciful  work,  that  Infidelity  has  ever  done,  add  it  all 
together,  and  there  is  not  so  much  nobility  in  it  as  in  the 
smallest  bead  of  that  Sister  of  Charity  who  last  night  went  up 
the  dark  alley  of  the  town,  put  a  jar  of  jelly  for  an  invalid 
appetite  on  a  broken  stand,  and  then  knelt  on  the  bare  floor, 
praying  the  mercy  of  Christ  upon  the  dying  soul. 

Infidelity  scrapes  no  hnt  for  the  wounded,  bakes  no 
bread  for  the  hungry,  shakes  up  no  pillow  for  the  sick,  rouses 
no  comfort  for  the  bereft,  gilds  no  grave  for  the  dead.  While 
Christ,  our  Christ,  our  wounded  Christ,  our  risen  Christ,  the 
Christ  of  this  old-fashioned  Bible — blessed  be  His  glorious 
name  forever  ! — our  Christ  stands  this  morning  pointing  to 
the  hospital,  or  to  the  asylum,  saying :  "  I  was  sick  and  ye 
gave  me  a  couch,  I  was  lame  and  ye  gave  me  a  crutch,  I  was 
blind  and  ye  physic ianed  my  eyes,  I  was  orphaned  and 
ye  mothered  my  soul,  I  was  lost  on  the  mountains  and  ye 
brought  me  home  ;  inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  to  one  of  the  least 
of  these,  ye  did  it  to  me." 

Oh  what  a  magnificent  array  of  men  and  women  have 
been  made  by  the  religion  of  the  Bible  !  I  cannot  call  the 
roll.  I  call  the  roll  only  of  a  part  of  one  company  of  a  regi- 
ment of  a  battalion  of  an  army  of  magnificent  men  and 
women  innumerable :  John  Howard,  John  Milton,  David 
Brainard,    George    Whitcfield,    Martin     Luther,    Adoniram 


86  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Judson,  Alexander  Duff,  Henry  Martyn,  William  Wilbcr- 
force,  Richard  Cobden,  Bishop  Mcllvainc,  James  A.  Gar- 
field, George  Washington,  Victoria  the  Queen;  Hannah 
More,  Charlotte  Elizabeth,  Harriet  Newell,  Mrs.  Sigourney, 
Florence  Nightingale,  Lucretia  Mott,  and  ten  thousand  other 
men  and  women,  living  and  dead,  standing  in  the  present 
and  in  the  past,  aflame  with  the  transpicuous  glories  of  the 
Christian  religion  ! 

In  this  trial  that  has  been  going  on  between  Infidelity 
and  Christianity,  we  have  only  called  one  witness,  and  that 
was  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  He  testified  in  behalf  of  Infidel- 
ity. We  have  shown  that  his  testimony  was  not  worthy  of 
being  received.  We  showed  it  was  founded  on  ignorance 
geological,  ignorance  chemical,  ignorance  astronomical,  igno- 
rance geographical,  and  ignorance  Biblical.  Whose  testi- 
mony will  you  take — these  men,  the  Ingersolls  of  earth, 
who  say  they  have  not  heard  the  voice  of  Christ,  have  not 
seen  the  coronation  ?  or  will  you  take  the  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  Christians  who  testify  of  what  they  saw  with 
their  own  eyes  and  heard  with  their  own  ears  ? 

Here  is  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  an  anodyne  for  all 
trouble,  the  mightiest  medicine  that  ever  came  down  to 
earth.  Here  is  a  man  who  says:  "I  don't  believe  in  it; 
there  is  no  power  in  it."  Here  are  other  people  who  say: 
"  We  have  found  out  its  power  and  know  its  soothing  influ- 
ence;  it  has  cured  us."  Whose  testimony  will  you  take  in 
regard  to  this  healing  medicine  ?  "  I  speak  as  unto  wise  men  : 
judge  ye  what  I  say." 

DOWNFALL   OF   CIIRISTL\NITY. 

Christianity  is  the  rising  sun  of  our  time,  and  men  have 
tried  with  the  uprolling  vapors  of  scepticism  and  the  smoke 
of  their  blasphemy  to  turn  the  sun  into  darkness.  Suppose 
the  archangels  of  malice  and  horror  should  be  let  loose  a 
little  while  and  be  allowed  to  extinguish  and  destroy  the 
sun  in  the  natural  heavens.  They  would  take  the  oceans 
from   other   worlds  and   pour  them  on  this  limiinar}-  of  the 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  8/ 

planetary  system,  and  the  waters  go  hissing  down  amid  the 
ravines  and  the  caverns,  and  there  is  explosion  after  explosion, 
until  there  are  only  a  few  peaks  of  fire  left  in  the  sun,  and 
these  are  cooling  down  and  going  out,  until  the  vast  conti- 
nents of  flame  are  reduced  to  a  small  acreage  of  fire,  and  that 
whitens  and  cools  off  until  there  are  only  a  few  coals  left,  and 
these  are  whitening  and  going  out  until  there  is  not  a  spark 
left  in  all  the  mountains  of  ashes,  and  the  valleys  of  ashes, 
and  the  chasms  of  ashes.  An  extinguished  sun.  A  dead 
sun.  A  buried  sun.  Let  all  worlds  wail  at  the  stupendous 
obsequies.  Of  course,  this  withdrawal  of  the  solar  light  and 
heat  throws  our  earth  into  a  universal  chill,  and  the  tropics 
become  the  temperate,  and  the  temperate  becomes  the  Arc- 
tic, and  there  are  frozen  rivers  and  frozen  lakes  and  frozen 
oceans.  From  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions  the  inhabi- 
tants gather  in  toward  the  centre  and  find  the  equator  as  the 
poles.  The  slain  forests  are  piled  up  into  a  great  bonfire, 
and  around  them  gather  the  shivering  villages  and  cities. 
The  wealth  of  the  coal-mines  is  hastily  poured  into  the  fur- 
naces and  stirred  into  rage  of  combustion,  but  soon  the  bon- 
fires begin  to  lower,  and  the  furnaces  begin  to  go  out,  and  the 
nations  begin  to  die.  Cotopaxi,  Vesuvius,  yEtna,  Stromboli, 
Californian  geysers  cease  to  smoke,  and  the  ice  of  hail-storms 
remains  unmelted  in  their  craters.  All  the  flowers  have 
breathed  their  last  breath.  Ships  with  sailors  frozen  at  the 
mast  and  helmsmen  frozen  at  the  wheel,  and  passengers 
frozen  in  the  cabin.  All  nations  dying,  first  at  the  north  and 
then  at  the  south.  Child  frosted  and  dead  in  the  cradle. 
Octogenarian  frosted  and  dead  at  the  hearth.  Workmen 
with  frozen  hand  on  the  hammer  and  frozen  foot  on  the 
shuttle.  Winter  from  sea  to  sea.  All-congealing  winter. 
Perpetual  winter.  Globe  of  frigidity.  Hemisphere  shackled 
to  hemisphere  by  chains  of  ice.  Universal  Nova  Zembla. 
The  earth  an  ice-floe  grinding  against  other  ice-floes.  The 
archangels  of  malice  and  horror  have  done  their  work,  and 
now  they  may  take  their  thrones  of  glacier  and  look  down 
upon  the  ruin  they  have  wrought. 

What  the  destruction  of  the  sun  in  the  natural  heavens 


88  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

would  be  to  our  physical  earth,  the  destruction  of  Christian- 
ity would  be  to  the  moral  world.  The  sun  turned  into  dark 
ness. 

Infidelity  in  our  time  is  considered  a  great  joke.  There 
are  people  who  will  gather  to  hear  Christianity  caricatured 
and  to  hear  Christ  assailed  with  quibble  and  quirk  and  mis- 
representation and  badinage  and  harlequinade. 

A  lecturer  in  Brooklyn  Theatre  is  reported  to  have 
said:  "When  we  compare  our  God  with  men,  He  is  not 
much  of  a  God.  When  Christ  was  here  He  was  forgiving 
and  half-human  ;  but  now  he  is  God  ;  and  instead  of  saying, 
'  Father,  forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  do,'  He  sends 
them  to  eternal  fire.  It  is  wonderful  the  difference  office 
makes  with  some  people."  "[Laughter],"  the  reporter  says. 
The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  came  to  carry  our  sorrows, 
maligned  in  the  presence  of  the  city  of  Brooklyn ! 

A   PUNISHABLE   CRIME. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  book  entitled  "  Religion  and  the 
State,"  by  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  T.  Spear,  the  ablest  ecclesias- 
tical lawyer  of  our  time,  and,  had  he  entered  the  legal  pro- 
fession instead  of  theology,  would  long  before  this  have  been 
upon  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington.  In 
this  book  he  gives  a  compilation  of  authorities  upon  the 
subject  of  blasphemy. 

Now,  I  say,  let  the  law  against  blasphemy  be  erased  from 
the  statute-book,  or  let  it  be  executed.  "Oh,"  says  some 
one,  "  don't  you  believe  in  free  speech  ?" 

Yes,  I  believe  in  all  styles  of  righteous  freedom  :  free 
driving  of  horses,  but  no  right  to  run  over  other  people;  free 
use  of  knives,  but  no  right  for  assassination  ;  free  use  of  gun- 
powder, but  no  right  to  destroy  the  lives  or  the  property  of 
others ;  free  speech,  but  no  freedom  for  obscenity  or  false 
speaking  or  blasphemy.  There  will  after  a  while  arise  in 
the  United  States  a  municipal  authority  somewhere  tall 
enough  to  look  over  all  political  considerations  and  strong 
armed  enough  to  execute  the  law  against  blasphemy,  and 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  89 

then  we  shall  have  no  more  of  the  outrageous  utterances  of 
last  Sabbath  night  in  Brooklyn  Theatre,  and  the  carrion 
stench  of  leprous  infidelity  will  be  fumigated  from  the 
atmosphere. 

I  propose  this  morning  to  take  Infidelity  and  Atheism 
out  of  the  realm  of  jocularity  into  one  of  tragedy,  and  show 
you  what  these  men  propose,  and  what,  if  they  are  success- 
ful, they  will  accomplish.  There  are  those  in  all  our  com- 
munities who  would  hke  to  see  the  Christian  religion  over- 
thrown, and  who  say  the  world  would  be  better  without  it. 
I  want  to  show  you  what  is  the  end  of  this  road,  and  what 
is  the  terminus  of  this  crusade,  and  what  this  world  will  be 
when  Atheism  and  Infidelity  have  triumphed  over  it,  if  they 
can.     I  say,  if  they  can.     I  reiterate  it,  if  they  can. 

DEGRADATION  OF  WOMANHOOD. 

Infidelity  would  be  the  complete  and  unutterable  degra- 
dation of  womanhood.  I  will  prove  it  by  facts  and  argu- 
ments which  no  honest  man  will  dispute.  In  all  communi- 
ties and  cities  and  states  and  nations  where  the  Christian 
religion  has  been  dominant,  woman's  condition  has  been 
ameliorated  and  improved,  and  she  is  deferred  to  and  hon- 
ored in  a  thousand  things,  and  every  gentleman  takes  off  his 
hat  before  her.  You  know  that  while  woman  may  suffer 
injustices  in  England  and  the  United  States,  she  has  more 
of  her  rights  in  Christendom  than  she  has  anywhere  else. 

Now  compare  this  with  woman's  condition  in  lands  where 
Christianity  has  made  little  or  no  advance — in  China,  in 
Barbary,  in  Borneo,  in  Tartary,  in  Egypt,  in  Hindostan. 
The  Burmese  sell  tJicir  wives  and  daughters  as  so  many 
sheep.  The  Hindoo  bible  makes  it  disgraceful  and  an 
outrage  for  a  woman  to  listen  to  music,  or  look  out  of  the 
window  in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  and  gives  as  a  lawful 
ground  for  divorce  a  woman's  beginning  to  eat  before  her 
husband  has  finished  his  meal !  What  mean  those  white 
bundles  on  the  ponds  and  rivers  in  China  in  the  morning? 
Infanticide  following  infanticide  ;  female  children  destroyed 


90  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

simply  because  thcj-  arc  female.  Women  harnessed  to  a 
plough  as  an  ox.  Woman  veiled  and  barricaded,  and  in  all 
styles  of  cruel  seclusion.  Her  birth  a  misfortune.  Her  life 
a  torture.  Her  death  a  horror.  The  missionary  of  the  cross 
to-day  in  heathen  lands  preaches  generally  to  two  groups — 
a  group  of  men  who  do  as  they  please  and  sit  where  they 
please;  the  other  group  women  hidden  and  carefully  se- 
cluded in  a  side  apartment,  where  they  may  hear  the  voice 
of  the  preacher,  but  may  not  be  seen.  No  refinement.  No 
liberty.  No  hope  for  this  life.  No  hope  for  the  life  to 
come.  Ringed  nose.  Cramped  foot.  Disfigured  face.  Em- 
bruted  soul. 

Now,  compare  those  two  conditions.  How  far  toward 
this  latter  condition  that  I  speak  of  would  woman  go  if 
Christian  influences  were  withdrawn  and  Christianity  were 
destroyed  ?  It  is  only  a  question  of  dynamics.  If  an  object 
be  lifted  to  a  certain  point  and  not  fastened  there,  and  the 
lifting  power  be  withdrawn,  how  long  before  that  object  will 
fall  down  to  the  point  from  which  it  started?  It  will  fall 
down,  and  it  will  go  still  farther  than  the  point  from  which 
it  started.  Christianity  has  lifted  woman  up  from  the  very 
depths  of  degradation  almost  to  the  skies.  If  that  lifting 
power  be  withdrawn,  she  falls  clear  back  to  the  depth  from 
which  she  was  resurrected,  not  going  any  lower  because 
there  is  no  lower  depth.  And  every  one  must  admit  that 
the  only  salvation  of  woman  from  degradation  and  woe  is 
the  Christian  religion,  and  that  the  only  influence  that  has 
ever  lifted  her  in  the  social  scale  is  Christianity, 

DEMORALIZATION   OF  SOCIETY, 

If  Infidelity  triumph  and  Christianity  be  overthrown,  it 
means  also  the  general  demoralization  of  society.  The  one 
idea  in  the  Bible  that  atheists  and  infidels  most  hate  is  the 
idea  of  retribution.  Take  away  the  idea  of  retribution  and 
punishment  from  society,  and  it  will  begin  very  soon  to  dis- 
integrate; and  take  away  from  the  minds  of  men  the  fear  of 
hell,  and  there  are  a  great  many  of  them  who  would  \'ery  soon 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  91 

turn  this  world  into  a  hell.  The  majority  of  those  who  are 
indignant  against  the  Bible  because  of  the  idea  of  punish- 
ment are  men  whose  lives  are  bad  or  whose  hearts  are  im- 
pure, and  who  hate  the  Bible  because  of  the  idea  of  future 
punishment,  for  the  same  reason  that  criminals  hate  the  pen- 
itentiary. Oh,  I  have  heard  this  brave  talk  about  people 
fearing  nothing  of  the  consequences  of  sin  in  the  next  world, 
and  I  have  made  up  my  mind  it  is  merely  a  coward's  whis- 
tling to  keep  his  courage  up.  I  have  seen  men  flaunt  their 
immoralities  in  the  face  of  the  community,  and  I  have  heard 
them  defy  the  Judgment  Day  and  scofT  at  the  idea  of  any 
future  consequence  of  their  sin  ;  but  when  they  came  to  die 
they  shrieked  until  you  could  hear  them  for  nearly  two 
blocks,  and  in  the  summer  night  the  neighbors  got  up  to 
put  the  windows  down  because  they  could  not  endure  the 
horror. 

I  would  not  want  to  see  a  rail-train  with  five  hundred 
Christian  people  on  board  go  down  through  a  drawbridge 
into  a  watery  grave.  I  would  not  want  to  see  five  hundred 
Christian  people  go  into  such  disaster,  but  I  tell  you  plainly 
that  I  could  more  easily  see  that  than  I  could  for  any  pro- 
tracted time  stand  and  see  an  infidel  die,  though  his  pillow 
were  of  eider-down  and  under  a  canopy  of  vermilion.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  brace  up  my  nerves  for  such  a  spectacle. 
There  is  something  at  such  a  time  so  indescribable  in  the 
countenance  !  I  just  looked  in  upon  it  for  a  minute  or  two, 
but  the  clutch  of  his  fist  was  so  diabolic,  and  the  strength  of 
voice  was  so  unnatural,  I  could  not  endure  it.  "  There  is 
no  hell,  there  is  no  hell,  there  is  no  hell !"  the  man  had  said 
for  sixty  years ;  but  that  night  when  I  looked  into  the 
dying-room  of  my  infidel  neighbor,  there  was  something  on 
his  countenance  which  seemed  to  say,  "  There  is,  there  is, 
there  is,  there  is!" 

The  mightiest  restraints  to-day  against  theft,  against  im- 
morality, against  libertinism,  against  crime  of  all  sorts — 
the  mightiest  restraints  are  the  retributions  of  eternity. 
Men  know,  that  they  can  escape  the  law,  but  down  in  the 
offender's  soul  there  is  the  realization  of  the  fact  that  they 


92  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

cannot  escape  God.  He  stands  at  tlie  end  of  the  road  of 
profligacy,  and  lie  will  not  clear  the  guilty.  Take  all  idea 
of  retribution  and  punishment  out  of  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  men,  and  it  would  not  be  long  before  Brooklyn  and  New 
York  and  Boston  and  Charleston  and  Chicago  became 
Sodoms.  The  only  restraints  against  the  evil  passions  of 
the  world  to-day  are  Bible  restraints. 

Suppose  now  these  generals  of  Atheism  and  Infidelity 
got  the  victory,  and  suppose  they  marshalled  a  great  army 
made  up  of  the  majority  of  the  world.  They  are  in  com- 
panies, in  regiments,  in  brigades — the  whole  army.  For- 
ward, march  !  ye  host  of  infidels  and  atheists,  banners  flying 
before,  banners  flying  behind,  banners  inscribed  with  the 
words  :  "  No  God  !  No  Christ !  No  punishment  !  No  re- 
straints !  Down  with  the  Bible  !  Do  as  you  please !"  The 
sun  turned  into  darkness.  Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army 
of  infidels  and  atheists,  and  first  of  all  attack  the  churches. 
Turn  them  into  club-houses.     Away  with  those  churches! 

Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists, 
and  next  scatter  the  Sabbath-schools — the  Sabbath-schools 
filled  with  bright-eyed,  bright-cheeked  little  ones  who  are 
singing  songs  on  Sunday  afternoon  and  getting  instruction 
when  they  ought  to  be  on  the  street-corners  playing  mar- 
bles, or  swearing  on  the  commons.  Away  with  them  !  For- 
ward, march  !  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists ;  next 
attack  Christian  asylums — the  institutions  of  mercy  sup- 
ported by  Christian  philanthropies.  Never  mind  the  blind 
eyes  and  the  deaf  ears  and  the  crippled  limbs  and  the  weak- 
ened intellects.  Let  paralyzed  old  age  pickup  its  own  food, 
and  orphans  fight  their  own  way,  and  the  half-reformed  go 
back  to  their  evil  habits.  Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army 
of  infidels  and  atheists,  and  with  your  battle-axes  hew  down 
the  cross,  and  split  up  the  manger  of  Bethlehem. 

On,  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists ;  now  come  to 
the  graveyards  and  the  cemeteries  of  the  earth.  Pull  down 
the  sculpture  above  Greenwood's  gate,  for  it  means  the  res- 
urrection. Tear  away  at  the  entrance  of  Laurel  Hill  the 
figure  of  OKI  Mortalit}-  and  the  chisel.     On,  }'e  great  army 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  93 

of  infidels  and  atheists,  into  the  graveyards  and  the  ceme- 
teries: and  where  you  see  "  Asleep  in  Jesus,"  cut  it  away; 
and  where  you  find  a  marble  story  of  heaven,  blast  it ;  and 
where  you  find  over  a  little  child's  grave,  "  Suffer  little  chil- 
dren to  come  unto  Me,"  substitute  the  words  "  delusion"  and 
"  sham  ;"  and  where  you  find  an  angel  in  marble,  strike  off  the 
wing ;  and  when  you  come  to  a  family  vault,  chisel  on  the 
door,  "  Dead  once,  dead  forever." 

But  on,  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists,  on  !  There 
are  heights  to  be  taken.  Pile  hill  on  hill,  Pelian  upon  Ossa, 
and  then  hoist  the  ladders  against  the  walls  of  heaven.  On 
and  on  until  ye  blow  up  the  foundations  of  jasper  and  tlie 
gates  of  pearl.  Now  charge  up  the  steep.  Now  aim  for  the 
throne  of  God. 

A  world  without  a  Head,  a  universe  without  a  King  !  Or- 
phan constellations  !  Fatherless  gallaxies  !  Anarchy  su- 
preme !  A  dethroned  Jehovah  !  An  assassinated  God  ! 
Patricide,  Regicide,  Deicide !  That  is  what  they  mean. 
That  is  what  they  will  have,  if  they  can,  if  they  can,  if  they 
can ! 

Civilization  hurled  back  into  semi-barbarism,  and  semi- 
barbarism  driven  back  into  Hottentot  savagery !  The  wheel 
of  progress  turned  the  other  way  and  turned  toward  the 
dark  ages  !  The  clock  of  the  centuries  put  back  two  thou- 
sand years  !  Go  back,  you  Sandwich  Islands,  from  your 
schools,  and  from  your  colleges,  and  from  your  reformed  con- 
dition, to  what  you  were  in  1820,  when  the  missionaries  first 
came  !  Call  home  the  five  hund  'ed  missionaries  from  India, 
and  overthrow  their  two  thousan  1  schools,  where  they  are  try- 
ing to  educate  the  heathen,  and  scatter  the  one  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  little  children  'hat  they  have  gathered  out 
of  barbarism  into  civilization !  Obliterate  all  the  work  of 
Dr.  Duff  in  India,  of  David  Abeel  in  China,  of  Dr.  King  in 
Greece,  of  Judson  in  Burmah,  of  David  Brainerd  amid  the 
American  aborigines,  and  send  home  the  three  thousand 
missionaries  of  the  cross  who  are  toiling  in  foreign  lands, 
toiling  for  Christ's  sake,  toiling  themselves  into  the  grave  ! 
Tell  these  three  thousand  men  of  God   that   they  are  of  no 


94  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

use  !  Send  home  the  mcdiciil  missionaries  who  arc  doctor- 
ing the  bodies  as  well  as  the  souls  of  the  dying  nations  !  Go 
home,  London  Missionary  Society!  Go  home,  American 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions!  Go  home,  ye  Moravians,  and 
relinquish  back  into  darkness,  and  squalor,  and  filth,  and 
death  the  nations  whom  ye  have  begun  to  lift  ! 

Oh,  my  friends,  there  has  never  been  such  a  nefarious 
plot  on  earth  as  that  which  Infidelity  and  Atheism  have 
planned.  We  were  shocked  at  the  attempt  to  blow  up  the 
Parliament-houses  in  London  ;  but  if  Infidelity  and  Athe- 
ism succeed  in  their  attempt,  they  would  dynamite  a  world. 
Let  them  have  their  full  way,  and  this  world  would  be  a 
habitation  with  just  three  rooms  :  the  one  a  mad-house,  an- 
other a  lazaretto,  the  other  a  pandemonium. 

I  put  before  you  their  whole  programme  from  beginning 
to  close.  In  the  theatre  the  tragedy  comes  first  and  the 
farce  afterward ;  but  in  this  infidel  drama  of  death,  the  farce 
comes  first  and  the  tragedy  afterward.  And  in  the  former, 
atheists  and  infidels  laugh  and  mock  ;  but  in  the  latter,  God 
Himself  will  laugh  and  mock.  He  says  so — "  I  will  laugh 
at  their  calamity,  and  mock  when  their  fear  cometh." 

From  such  a  chasm  of  individual,  national,  world-wide 
ruin,  stand  back.  O  }-oung  men,  stand  back  from  that 
chasm  !  You  see  the  practical  drift  of  Infidelity.  I  want 
you  to  know  where  that  road  leads.  Stand  back  from  that 
chasm  of  ruin.  The  time  is  coming  when  the  infidels  and 
the  atheists  who  now  openly,  and  out  and  out,  and  above 
board  preach  and  practice  Infidelity  and  Atheism  will  be 
considered  as  criminals  against  society,  as  they  are  now 
criminals  against  God.  And  when  they  die,  the  only  text  in 
all  the  Bible  appropriate  for  the  funeral  sermon  will  be  Jere- 
miah 22  :  19 — "  He  shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of  an 
ass." 

CHRISTIANITY    NOT   DEAD. 

Let  us  see  whether  the  church  of  God  is  in  a  Bull  Run 
retreat,  muskets,  canteens,  and  haversacks  strewing  all   the 


INGERSOLLIAN^  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  p5 

way.  The  great  English  historian,  Sharon  Turner,  a  man  of 
vast  learning  and  of  great  accuracy,  not  a  clergyman  but  an 
attorney  as  well  as  a  historian,  gives  this  overwhelming 
statistic  in  regard  to  Christianity  and  in  regard  to  the 
number  of  Christians  in  the  different  centuries.  In  the 
first  century,  500,000  Christians  ;  in  the  second  century, 
2,000,000  Christians  ;  in  the  third  century,  5,000,000  Chris- 
tians ;  in  the  fourth  century,  10,000,000  Christians;  in 
the  fifth  century,  15,000,000  Christians;  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, 20,000,000  Christians ;  in  the  seventh  century,  24,000,- 
000  Christians ;  in  the  eighth  century,  30,000,000  Chris- 
tians ;  in  the  ninth  century,  40,000,000  Christians ;  in  the 
tenth  century,  50,000,000  Christians  ;  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, 70,000,000  Christians ;  in  the  twelfth  century,  80,000,- 
000  Christians  ;  in  the  thirteenth  century,  75,000,000  Chris- 
tians ;  in  the  fourteenth  century,  80,000,000  Christians ;  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  100,000,000  Christians  ;  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  125,000,000  Christians;  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  155,000,000  Christians  ;  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
200,000,000  Christians — a  decadence,  as  you  observe,  in  only 
one  century,  and  more  than  made  up  in  the  following  cen- 
turies, while  it  is  the  usual  computation  that  there  will  be, 
when  the  record  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  made  up,  at 
least  300,000,000  Christians. 

Poor  Christianity!  what  a  pity  it  has  no  friends.  How 
lonesome  it  must  be.  Who  will  take  it  out  of  the  poor- 
house?  Poor  Christianity!  Three  hundred  millions  in  one 
century.  In  a  few  weeks  of  last  year  2,500,000  copies  of  the 
New  Testament  distributed.  Why  the  earth  is  like  an  old 
castle  with  twenty  gates  and  a  park  of  artillery  ready  to 
thunder  down  every  gate.  Lay  aside  all  Christendom  and 
see  how  heathendom  is  being  surrounded  and  honeycombed 
and  attacked  by  this  all-conquering  Gospel.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  there  were  only  150  missionaries  ;  now 
there  are  25,000  missionaries  and  native  helpers  and  evangel- 
ists. At  the  beginning  of  this  century  there  were  only  50,- 
000  heathen  converts  ;  now  there  are  1,650,000  converts  from 
heathendom.     There  is  not  a  seacoast  on  the  planet  but  the 


96  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

battery  of  the  Gospel  is  planted  and  ready  to  march  on, 
north,  south,  east,  west. 

You  all  know  that  the  chief  work  of  an  army  is  to  plant 
the  batteries.  It  may  take  many  days  to  plant  the  batteries, 
and  they  may  do  all  the  work  in^  ten  minutes.  These  bat- 
teries are  being  planted  all  along  the  seacoasts  and  in  all 
nations.  It  may  take  a  good  while  to  plant  them,  and  they 
may  do  all  their  work  in  one  day.  They  will.  Nations  are 
to  be  born  in  a  day.  But  just  come  back  to  Christendom 
and  recognize  the  fact  that  during  the  last  ten  years  as  many 
people  have  connected  themselves  with  evangelical  churches 
as  connected  themselves  with  the  churches  in  the  first  fifty 
years  of  this  century.  So  Christianity  is  falling  back,  and 
the  Bible,  they  say,  is  becoming  an  obsolete  book  ! 

I  go  into  a  court,  and  wherever  I  find  a  judge's  bench  or 
a  clerk's  desk,  I  find  a  Bible.  Upon  what  book  could  there 
be  uttered  the  solemnity  of  an  oath?  What  book  is  apt  to 
be  put  in  the  trunk  of  the  young  man  as  he  leaves  for  city 
life  ?  The  Bible.  What  shall  I  find  in  nine  out  of  every  ten 
homes  in  Brooklyn  ?  The  Bible.  In  nine  out  of  every  ten 
homes  in  Christendom  ?  The  Bible.  Voltaire  wrote  the 
prophecy  that  the  Bible  in  the  nineteenth  century  would  be- 
come extinct.  The  century  is  almost  gone  and  what  do  we 
see  ?  There  have  been  more  Bibles  published  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  century  than  in  the  former  part  of  the  ccntur}', 
and  do  you  think  the  Bible  will  become  extinct  in  the 
next  ten  years  ?  I  have  to  tell  you  that  the  room  in  which 
Voltaire  wrote  that  prophecy,  not  long  ago  was  crowded 
from  floor  to  ceiling  with  Bibles  for  Switzerland. 

Suppose  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  should  pass 
a  law  that  there  should  be  no  more  Bibles  printed  in  Amer- 
ica, and  no  more  Bibles  read.  If  there  are  thirty  million 
grown  people  in  the  United  States  there  would  be  thirty 
million  people  in  an  arm}' to  put  down  such  a  lawand  defend 
their  right  to  read  the  Bible.  But  suppose  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  should  make  a  law  against  the  reading  or 
the  publication  of  an}-  other  book,  how  many  peoj^le  woukl  go 
out  in  such  a  crusade?     Could  }'ou  get  thirty  million  people 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  97 

to  go  out  and  risk  their  lives  in  the  defence  of  Shakespeare's 
tragedies,  or  Gladstone's  tracts,  or  Macaulay's  History  of 
England?  You  know  that  there  are  a  thousand  men  who 
Avould  die  in  the  defence  of  this  book  where  there  is  not 
more  than  one  man  who  would  die  in  defence  of  any  other 
book. 

Which  institution  stands  nearest  the  hearts  of  the  people 
of  America  to-day  ?  I  do  not  care  in  what  village  or  in  what 
city,  or  what  neighborhood  you  go.  Which  institution  is  it? 
Is  it  the  post-ofifice  ?  Is  it  the  hotel  ?  Is  it  the  lecturing 
hall  ?  Ah !  you  know  it  is  not.  You  know  that  the  institu- 
tion which  stands  nearest  to  the  hearts  of  the  American 
people  is  the  Christian  church.  When  the  diphtheria  sweeps 
your  children  off,  whom  do  you  send  for?  The  postmaster? 
the  attorney-general?  the  hotel-keeper?  alderman?  No, 
you  send  for  a  minister  of  this  Bible  religion.  And  if  you 
have  not  a  room  in  your  house  for  the  obsequies,  what  build- 
ing do  you  solicit?  Do  you  say  :  "  Give  me  the  finest  room 
in  the  hotel  "?  Do  you  say  :  "  Give  me  that  theatre  "?  Do 
you  say :  "  Give  me  a  place  in  that  public  building  where  I 
can  lay  my  dead  for  a  little  while  until  we  say  a  prayer  over 
it  "  ?  No  ;  you  say  :  *'  Give  us  the  house  of  God."  And  if 
there  is  a  song  to  be  sung  at  the  obsequies,  what  do  you 
want  ?  What  does  anybody  want  ?  The  Marseillaise  Hymn  ? 
God  Save  the  Queen?  our  own  grand  national  air?  No. 
They  want  the  hymn  with  which  they  sang  their  old  Chris- 
tian mother  into  her  last  sleep,  or  they  want  sung  the  Sab- 
bath-school hymn  which  their  little  girl  sang  the  last  Sabbath 
afternoon  she  was  out  before  she  got  that  awful  sickness 
which  broke  your  heart.  I  appeal  to  your  common-sense.  You 
know  the  most  endearing  institution  on  earth  is  the  church 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  A  man  is  a  fool  that  does  not 
recognize  it. 

VICTORY   FOR   GOD. 

I  know  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  and  his  coadjutors  say  in  their 
lectures  and  in  their  interviews,  and  in  phraseology  charged 


98  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

with  all  venom  and  abuse  and  caricature,  that  Christianity- 
has  collapsed,  that  the  Bible  is  an  obsolete  book,  that  the 
Christian  Church  is  on  the  retreat.  I  answer  that  wholesale 
charge ;  No,  not  so,  but  the  cotilrary. 

Vast  multitudes,  I  believe,  by  my  arguments  have  been 
persuaded  that  the  Bible  is  a  common-sensical  book,  that  it 
is  a  reasonable  book,  that  it  is  an  authentic  book.  Men  have 
told  me  that  while  they  had  been  accustomed  to  receive  the 
New  Testament  they  had  disbelieved  the  Old  Testament, 
until  by  the  blessing  of  God  upon  this  exposition  they  have 
come  to  believe  that  the  Old  Testament  is  just  as  true  as 
the  New  Testament. 

A  man  said  to  mc  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  as  he  tapped  mc 
on  the  shoulder:  "  I  want  to  tell  you  that  my  son  who  was 
at  college  and  who  was  a  confirmed  iJifidcl,  wrote  mc  in  a 
letter  which  I  got  this  morning,  saying  that  through  the  ar- 
guments you  have  presented  in  behalf  of  the  truth  of  the 
Bible,  he  has  given  up  his  scepticism  and  surrendered  his 
heart  to  God.  I  thought  you  would  like  to  hear  it."  I  said, 
"  God  bless  you,  that  is  the  best  thing  I  have  heard  to-night."' 
And  so  I  believe  the  people  are  all  going  to  be  persuaded 
that  this  is  God's  word. 

I  was  in  Boston,  and  at  the  place  where  the  most  famous 
infidel  church  was  ever  gathered.  Music  Hall  stands  just 
where  it  did,  but  the  infidel  church  has  perished.  "  Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  God's  word  shall  never  pass 
away."  '  What  is  that  scrolled,  clasped,  Dore-illustrated  vol- 
ume on  the  drawing-room  centre-table  ?  What  is  that  de- 
faced, lead-pencilled  volume  on  the  clerk's  desk  in  the  court- 
room ?  What  is  that  volume  put  by  loving  hands  into  the 
trunk  of  the  young  man  as  he  leaves  country  life  for  cit}-  life  ? 
What  is  that  book  on  which  all  the  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  and  all  our  Presidents  take  their 
oaths  of  ofifice?  What  is  that  book  of  which  the  world  thinks 
so  much  that  the  printing  press  has  multiplied  two  hundred 
and  fifty  million  copies  ?  It  is  the  l^ook  upon  which  modern 
infidelity  has  its  hand,  and  says,  "  Surrender !"  But  on  it  is 
written  "  No  surrender." 


INGEKSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  99 

Do  I  hear  you  ask,  "  Have  you  any  nervous  anxiety  about 
the  overthrow  of  Christianity?"  Oh!  no.  There  never 
vi^ere  so  many  churches  of  Jesus  Christ  as  there  are  now, 
never  so  many  men  who  beheve  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Son  of 
God,  never  so  many  institutions  of  mercy  born  of  Christian- 
ity. Have  you  any  fear  that  people  will  be  laughed  out  of 
their  religion,  and  that  the  modern  mode  of  caricaturing 
Christianity  will  destroy  it  from  the  hearts  of  men  ?  Oh  ! 
no.  A  man's  religion  is  a  very  sacred  thing,  and  it  is  down 
in  the  depths  of  his  soul ;  and  while  you  may  persuade  him 
out  of  it,  or  coax  him  out  of  it,  or  argue  him  out  of  it,  you 
cannot  laugh  him  out  of  it. 

A  thousand  voices  come  up  to  me,  saying,  "  Do  you 
really  think  Infidelity  will  succeed  ?  Has  Christianity 
received  its  death-blow?  and  will  the  Bible  become  ob- 
solete?" Yes,  when  the  smoke  of  the  city  chimney  arrests 
and  destroys  the  noonday  sun.  Josephus  says  about  the 
time  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  the  sun  was  turned  in- 
to darkness  ;  but  only  the  clouds  rolled  between  the  sun  and 
the  earth.  The  sun  went  right  on.  It  is  the  same  sun,  the 
same  luminary  as  when  at  the  beginning  it  shot  out  like  an 
electric  spark  from  God's  finger,  and  to-day  it  is  warming 
the  nations,  and  to-day  it  is  gilding  the  sea,  and  to-day  it  is 
filling  the  earth  with  [light.  The  same  old  sun,  not  at  all 
worn  out,  though  its  light  steps  one  hundred  and  ninety 
million  miles  a  second,  though  its  pulsations  are  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  trillion  undulations  in  a  second.  Same  sun 
with  beautiful  white  light  made  up  of  the  violet  and  the  in- 
digo and  the  blue  and  the  green  and  the  red  and  the  yellow 
and  the  orange — the  seven  beautiful  colors  now  just  as  when 
the  solar  spectrum  first  divided  them. 

At  the  beginning  God  said,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  and  light 
was,  and  light  is,  and  light  shall  be.  So  Christianity  is  roll- 
ing on,  and  it  is  going  to  warm  all  nations,  and  all  nations 
are  to  bask  in  its  light.  Men  may  shut  the  window-blinds  so 
they  cannot  see  it,  or  they  may  smoke  the  pipe  of  specula- 
tion until  they  are  shadowed  under  their  own  vaporing;  but 
the  Lord  God  is  a  sun !     This  white   light  of   the   Gospel 


icx)  TRLwrrET  rf:.ii.s. 

made  up  of  all  the  beautiful  colors  of  earth  and  heaven — 
violet  plucked  from  amid  the  spring  grass,  and  the  indigo  of 
the  southern  jungles,  and  the  blue  of  the  skies,  and  the 
green  of  the  foliage,  and  the  yellow  of  the  autumnal  woods, 
and  the  orange  of  the  southern  groves,  and  the  red  of  the 
sunsets.  All  the  beauties  of  earth  and  heaven  brought  out 
by  this  spiritual  spectrum.  Great  Britain  is  going  to  take 
all  Europe  for  God.  The  United  States  arc  going  to  take 
all  America  for  God.  Both  of  them  together  will  take  all 
Asia  for  God.  All  three  of  them  will  take  Africa  for  God. 
"  Who  art  thou,  oh  great  mountain )  before  Zerubbabel  thou 
shalt  become  a  plain."  The  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken 
it.     Hallelujah,  amen  ! 

Now  let  us  see  whether  the  Bible  is  a  last  year's  almanac. 
You  try  to  insult  my  common-sense  by  telling  me  the  Bible 
is  fading  out  from  the  world.  It  is  the  most  popular  book 
of  the  century. 

How  do  I  know  it  ?  I  know  it  just  as  I  know  in  regard 
to  other  books.  How  many  volumes  of  that  book  are  pub- 
lished ?  Well,  you  say,  five  thousand.  How  many  copies  of 
that  book  are  published  ?  A  hundred  thousand.  Which  is 
the  more  popular?  Why  of  course  the  one  that  has  a  hun- 
dred thousand  circulation.  And  if  this  book  has  more  copies 
abroad  in  the  world,  if  there  are  five  times  as  many  Bibles 
abroad  as  any  other  book,  does  not  that  show  you  that  the 
most  popular  book  on  the  planet  to-day  is  the  Word  of  God? 

INGERSOLL  DEFEATED. 

Mr.  Ingersoll,  years  ago,  riding  in  a  railcar  in  Illinois, 
said:  "What  has  Christianity  ever  done?"  An  old  Chris- 
tian woman  said  :  "  //  lias  done  one  tJii)if^,  anyhow  ;  it  has  kept 
Mr.  Ingersoll  from  being  governor  of  Illinois!"  As  I  stood 
in  the  side  room  of  the  opera  house  at  Peoria,  Illinois,  a 
prominent  gentleman  of  that  city  said  :  "  I  can  tell  you  the 
secret  of  that  tremendous  bitterness  ac^ainst  Cjiristianity." 
Said  I:  "What  was  it  ■'"  "Why."  said  he,  "in  this  very 
house  there  was  a  ij^rcat  convention  to  nominate  a  go\-crnor, 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  lOI 

and  when  tJiat  champion  of  infidelity  zvas  nominated,  a  plain 
farmer  got  up  and  said:  'Mr.  Cliairman,  that  nomination 
must  not  be  made ;  the  Sunday-schools  of  Illinois  will  defeat 
him.'  "  That  ended  all  prospect  of  his  nomination.  The 
Christian  religion  mightier  to-day  than  it  ever  was. 

0  my  friends,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  instead  of  fall-  • 
ing  back  is  on  the  advance.  I  am  certain  it  is  on  the  ad- 
vance. I  see  the  glittering  of  swords,  I  hear  the  tramping 
of  the  troops,  I  hear  the  thunderings  of  parks  of  artillery. 
O  !  my  God  and  Saviour,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  have  been 
permitted  to  see  this  day — this  day  of  Thy  triumph,  this  day 
of  the  confusion  of  Thine  enemies.  O !  Lord  God,  take  Thy 
sword  from  Thy  thigh  and  ride  forth  to  the  victory. 

1  am  mightily  encouraged  because  I  find  among  other 
things  that  while  this  Christianity  has  been  bombarded  for 
centuries,  infidelity  has  not  destroyed  one  church,  or  crippled 
one  minister,  or  uprooted  one  verse  of  one  chapter  of  all  the 
Bible.  If  that  has  been  their  magnificent  record  for  the  cen- 
turies that  are  past,  what  may  we  expect  for  the  future  ? 
The  Church  all  the  time  getting  the  victory,  and  their  shot 
and  shell  all  gone. 

And  then  I  find  another  most  encouraging  thought  in 
the  fact  that  the  secular  printing-press  and  the  pulpit  seem 
harnessed  in  the  same  team  for  the  proclamation  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Every  Wall  Street  banker  to-morrow  in  New  York, 
every  State  Street  banker  to-morrow  in  Boston,  every  Third 
Street  banker  to-morrow  in  Philadelphia,  every  banker  in  the 
United  States,  and  every  merchant  will  have  in  his  pocket 
a  treatise  on  Christianity,  a  call  to  repentance,  ten,  twenty, 
or  thirty  passages  of  Scripture  in  the  reports  of  sermons 
preached  throughout  these  cities  and  throughout  the  land 
to-day.  It  will  be  so  in  Chicago,  so  in  New  Orleans,  so  in 
Charleston,  so  in  Boston,  so  in  Philadelphia,  so  everywhere. 

I  know  the  tract  societies  are  doing  a  grand  and  glorious 
work,  but  I  tell  you  there  is  no  power  on  earth  to-day  equal 
to  the  fact  that  the  American  printing-press  is  taking  up  the 
sermons  which  are  preached  to  a  few  hundred  or  a  few  thou- 
sand people,  on  Monday  morning  and  Monday  evening,  in 


102  Tin  MP I:  J-  PEALS. 

tlic  morning  and  c\cning  papers,  scattering  that  truth  to  the 
milHons.  What  a  thought  it  is!  What  an  encouragement 
for  every  Cliristian  man. 

Tliat  dehision  has  to-day  two  Inindrcd  million  dupes  I  It 
proposes  to  encircle  the  earth  with  its  girdle.  That  which 
has  been  called  a  delusion  has  already  overshadowed  the 
Appalachian  range  on  this  side  the  sea,  and  it  has  over- 
shadowed the  Balkan  and  Caucasian  ranges  on  the  other 
side  the  sea.  It  has  conquered  England  and  the  United 
States. 

This  champion  delusion,  this  hoax,  this  swindle  of  the 
ages,  as  it  has  been  called,  has  gone  forth  to  conquer  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific,  and  Melanesia  and  the  Micronesia  and 
Malayan  Polynesia  have  already  surrendered  to  the  delu- 
sion. Yea,  it  has  conquered  the  Indian  archipelago  and 
Borneo,  and  Sumatra  and  Celebes  and  Java  have  fallen  un- 
der its  wiles.  In  the  P'iji  Islands,  where  there  are  120,000 
people,  102,000  have  already  become  the  dupes  of  this  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  if  things  go  on  as  they  are  now  going  on, 
and  if  the  influence  of  this  great  hallucination  of  the  ages 
cannot  be  stopped,  it  will  swallow  the  globe.  The  cannibals 
in  South  Sea,  the  Bushmen  of  Terra  del  Fuego,  the  wild  men 
of  Australia,  putting  down  the  knives  of  their  cruelt}-,  and 
clothing  themselves  in  decent  apparel — all  under  the  power 
of  this  delusion.  Judson  and  Doty  and  Abeel  and  Camp- 
bell and  Williams,  and  the  three  thousand  missionaries  of 
the  Cross  turning  their  backs  on  home  and  civilization  and 
comfort,  and  going  out  amid  the  squalor  of  heathenism  to 
relieve  it,  to  save  it,  to  help  it,  toiling  until  the)'  dropped 
into  their  graves,  dying  with  no  earthly  comfort  about  them, 
and  going  into  graves  with  no  appropriate  epitaph,  when 
they  might  have  lived  in  this  country,  and  lived  for  them- 
selves, and  lived  luxuriously,  and  been  at  last  put  into  brill 
iant  sepulchre.     What  a  delusion  ! 


IXGERSOLLIAN  IXFIDELITY  COXFUTED.  lO^ 


WHAT  HAS  BEEX  ACCOMPLISHED? 

The   delusion   has  made  wonderful  transforinations  of 
huvian  cJiaracter. 

Lo  I  the  Prototj-pe  Captive  of  this  great  Christian  delusion  I 
There  goes  Saul  of  Tarsus,  on  horseback,  at  full  gallop. 
Where  is  he  going?  To  destroy  Christians.  He  wants  no 
better  play-spell  than  to  stand  and  watch  the  hats  and  coats 
of  the  murderers  who  are  massacring  God's  children.  There 
goes  the  same  man.  This  time  he  is  afoot.  Where  is  he 
going  now  ?  Going  on  the  road  to  Ostia  to  die  for  Christ. 
They  tried  to  whip  it  out  of  him,  they  tried  to  scare  it  out 
of  him,  they  thought  they  would  give  him  enough  of  it  by 
putting  him  into  a  windowless  dungeon,  and  keeping  him  on 
small  diet,  and  denying  him  a  cloak,  and  condemning  him  as 
a  criminal,  and  howling  at  him  through  the  street ;  but  they 
could  not  freeze  it  out  of  him,  and  they  could  not  sweat  it 
out  of  him,  and  they  could  not  pound  it  out  of  him,  so  they 
tried  the  surgerj^  of  the  sword,  and  one  summer  day  in  '65 
he  was  decapitated.  Perhaps  the  mightiest  intellect  of  the 
six  thousand  years  of  the  world's  existence  hoodwinked, 
cheated,  cajoled,  duped  by  the  Christian  religion  I  I  will  go 
down  the  aisle  of  any  church  in  Christendom,  and  I  will  find 
on  either  side  that  aisle  those  who  were  once  profligate,  pro- 
fane, unclean  of  speech,  and  unclean  of  action,  drunken  and 
lost.  But  by  the  power  of  this  delusion  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion they  have  been  completely  transformed,  and  now  they 
are  kind  and  amiable  and  genial  and  loving  and  useful. 
Everybody  sees  the  change.  Under  the  power  of  this  great 
hallucination  they  have  quit  their  former  associates,  and 
whereas  they  once  found  their  chief  delight  among  those  who 
gambled  and  swore  and  raced  horses,  now  they  find  their 
chief  joy  among  those  who  go  to  prayer-meetings  and 
churches ;  so  complete  is  the  delusion.  Yea.  their  own  fami- 
lies have  noticed  it — the  wife  has  noticed  it,  the  children  have 
noticed  it.  The  money  that  went  for  rum  now  goes  for  books 
and  for  clothes  and  for  education.     He  is  a  new  man.     All 


104  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

who  know  him  sa}' there  has  been  a  wonderful  change.  What 
is  the  cause  of  this  change?  Tliis  great  hallucination  of  the 
Christian  religion.  There  is  as  much  difference  between  what 
he  is  now  and  what  he  once  was,  as  between  a  rose  and  a 
nettle,  as  between  a  dove  and  a  vulture,  as  between  day  and 
night.     Tremendous  delusion  ! 

Admiral  Farragut,  one  of  the  most  admired  men  of  the 
American  navy,  early  became  a  victim  of  this  Christian  delu- 
sion, and  seated  not  long  before  his  death,  at  Long  Branch, 
he  was  giving  some  friends  an  account  of  his  early  life.  He 
said :  "  My  father  went  down  in  behalf  of  the  United  States 
Government  to  put  an  end  to  Aaron  Burr's  rebellion.  I  was 
a  cabin-boy  and  went  along  with  him.  I  could  swear  like  an 
old  salt.  I  could  gamble  in  every  style  of  gambling.  I  knew 
all  the  wickedness  there  was  at  that  time  abroad.  One  day 
my  father  cleared  everybody  out  of  the  cabin  except  myself, 
and  locked  the  door.  He  said :  *  David,  what  are  you  going 
to  do?  What  are  you  going  to  be?'  'Well,'  I  said,  '  father, 
I  am  going  to  follow  the  sea.'  *  Follow  the  sea!  and  be  a 
poor  miserable,  drunken  sailor,  kicked  and  cuffed  about  the 
world  and  die  of  a  fever  in  a  foreign  hospital.' 

"  '  O !  no,'  I  said,  '  father,  I  will  not  be  that,  I  will  tread 
the  quarter-deck,  and  command  as  you  do.'  '  No,  David,' 
my  father  said,  '  no,  David,  a  person  that  has  your  principles 
and  your  bad  habits  will  never  tread  the  quarter-deck  or 
command.'  My  father  went  out  and  shut  the  door  after 
him,  and  I  said  then,  '  I  will  change,  I  will  never  swear  again, 
I  will  never  drink  again,  I  will  never  gamble  again,  and,  gen- 
tlemen, by  the  help  of  God  I  have  kept  those  three  vows  to 
this  time.  I  soon  after  that  became  a  Christian,  and  that 
decided  my  fate  for  time  and  for  eternity.'"  Blessed  delu- 
sion, that  could  work  such  a  ivonderful  transforinatio)i  of 
character  ! 


THE   GREATEST  WORK   OF  THE  AGE. 

The  great  works  of  the  great  lawyers,  the  Blackstones, 
the  Clarendons,  the   Hales,  the  Mansfields,  the  Currans,  the 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY   CONFUTED.  IO5 

Burkes,  the  Emmets,  the  Rufus  Choates,  the  Daniel  Web- 
sters — all  their  works,  all  the  English  law,  all  American  law, 
all  Roman  law,  all  the  laws  of  all  the  nations  that  are  worth 
anything,  founded  on  the  ten  sentences  that  a  venerable 
lawyer  of  olden  time  recorded  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of 
Exodus:  Indorsed  by  illustrious  dupes! 

Ah !  that  is  the  remarkable  thing  about  this  delusion :  it 
overpowers  the  strongest  intellects.  For  example  :  William 
Wilberforce,  the  statesman  ;  Robert  Boyle,  the  philosopher ; 
Locke,  the  metaphysician. 

Deluded  Lawyers. — Lord  Cairns,  the  highest  legal  author- 
ity in  England,  the  ex-adviser  of  the  throne,  spending  his 
vacation  in  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  poor 
people  of  Scotland.  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  United  States,  an  old-fashioned  evangelical 
Christian,  an  elder  in  the  Reformed  Church.  John  Bright, 
a  deluded  Quaker.  Henry  Wilson,  the  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States,  dying  a  deluded  Methodist  or  Congrega- 
tionalist.     Earl  of  Kintore  dying  a  deluded  Presbyterian. 

Deluded  Doctors. — Two  hundred  and  twenty  physicians 
meeting  week  by  week  in  London,  in  the  Union  Medical 
Prayer  Circle,  to  worship  God. 

Deluded  Sceptics. — Thomas  Chalmers  was  once  a  sceptic, 
Robert  Hall  a  sceptic,  Robert  Newton  a  sceptic,  Christmas 
Evans  a  sceptic.  But  when  once  with  strong  hand  they  took 
hold  of  the  chariot  of  the  Gospel,  they  rolled  it  on,  and  with 
what  momentum ! 

Deluded  Critics. — Gather  the  critics,  secular  and  religious, 
of  this  century  together,  and  put  a  vote  to  them  as  to  which 
is  the  greatest  poem  ever  written,  and  by  large  majority  they 
will  say,  "  Paradise  Lost."  Who  wrote  "  Paradise  Lost?  " 
One  of  the  fools  who  believed  in  this  Bible,  John  Milton. 

Benjamin  Franklin  surrendered  to  this  delusion,  if  you 
may  judge  from  the  letter  that  he  wrote  to  Thomas  Paine 
begging  him  to  destroy  the  "Age  of  Reason"  in  manuscript, 
and  never  let  it  go  into  type,  and  writing  afterward,  in  his 
old  days:  "Of  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  I  have  to  say  that  the 


I06  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

system  of  morals  lie  left,  and  the  religion  He  has  given  us, 
are  the  best  things  the  world  has  ever  seen  or  is  likely  to  see." 

Patrick  Hciiry,  the  electric  champion  of  liberty,  enslaved 
by  this  delusion,  so  that  he  says  :  "  The  book  worth  all  other 
books  put  together  is  the  Bible."  Benjamin  Rush,  the  leading 
physiologist  and  anatomist  of  his  day,  the  great  medical 
scientist, — what  did  he  say?  "The  only  true  and  perfect 
religion  is  Christianity."  Isaac  Nczvton,  the  leading  philoso- 
pher of  his  time, — what  did  he  say?  That  man,  surrenderin 
to  this  delusion  of  the  Christian  religion,  crying  out :  "  The 
sublimest  philosophy  on  earth  is  the  philosophy  of  the  Gos- 
pel." David  Br czvstcr,  at  the  pronunciation  of  whose  name 
every  scientist  the  world  over  uncovers  his  head,  David 
Brewster  saying  :  "  Oh,  this  religion  has  been  a  great  light  to 
me,  a  very  great  light  all  my  days."  President  Thiers,  the 
great  French  statesman,  acknowledging  that  he  prayed  when 
he  said :  "  I  invoke  the  Lord  God,  in  whom  I  am  glad  to 
believe."  David  Livingstone,  able  to  conquer  the  lion,  able 
to  conquer  the  panther,  able  to  conquer  the  savage,  yet  con- 
quered by  this  delusion,  this  hallucination,  this  great  swindle 
of  the  ages,  so  when  they  find  him  dead  they  find  him  on 
his  knees.  William  E.  Gladstone,  the  strongest  intellect  in 
England  to-day,  unable  to  resist  this  chimera,  this  fallacy, 
this  delusion  of  the  Christian  religion,  goes  to  the  house  of 
God  every  Sabbath,  and  often,  at  the  invitation  of  the  rector, 
re-ads  the  prayers  to  the  people. 

Oh,  if  those  mighty  intellects  are  overborne  by  this  delu- 
sion, what  chance  is  there  for  )'ou  and  for  me  ? 

Besides  that,  I  have  noticed  that  first-rate  infidels  cannot 
be  depended  on  for  steadfastness  in  the  proclamation  of 
their  sentiments.  Goethe,  a  leading  sceptic,  \\'as  so  wrought 
upon  by  this  Christianity  that  in  a  weak  moment  he  cried 
out:  "My  belief  in  the  Bible  has  saved  me  in  my  literary 
and  moral  life."  Rousseau,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  cham- 
pions of  infidelity,  spending  his  whole  life  warring  against 
Christianit}',  cries  out :  "The  majesty  of  the  Scriptures  amazes 
me."  Altemont,  the  notorious  infidel,  one  would  think  he 
would  have  been  safe  asrainst  this  delusion  of  the  Christian 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  10/ 

religion.  Oh  no  !  After  talking  against  Christianity  all  his 
days,  in,  his  last  hours  he  cried  out :  "  O  thou  blasphemed 
but  most  indulgent  Lord  God,  hell  itself  is  a  refuge  if  it  hide 
me  from  thy  frown." 

Voltaire,  the  most  talented  infidel  the  world  ever  saw, 
writing  two  hundred  and  fifty  publications,  and  the  most  of 
them  spiteful  against  Christianity,  himself  the  most  notorious 
libertine  of  the  century — one  would  have  thought  he  could 
have  been  depended  upon  for  steadfastness  in  the  advocacy 
of  infidelity  and  in  the  war  against  this  terrible  chimera,  this 
delusion  of  the  Gospel.  But  no  ;  in  his  last  hour  he  asks 
for  Christian  burial,  and  asks  that  they  give  him  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Why,  you  cannot  depend 
upon  these  first-rate  infidels  ;  you  cannot  depend  upon  their 
power  to  resist  this  great  delusion  of  Christianity. 

Thomas  Paine,  the  god  of  modern  sceptics,  his  birthday 
celebrated  in  New  York  and  Boston  with  great  enthusiasm 
— Thomas  Paine,  the  paragon  of  Bible-haters — Thomas 
Paine,  about  whom  his  brother-infidel  William  Carver  wrote 
in  a  letter,  which  I  have  at  my  house,  saying  that  he  drank 
a  quart  of  rum  a  day  and  was  too  mean  and  too  dishonest 
to  pay  for  it — Thomas  Paine,  the  adored  of  modern  infidelity 
— Thomas  Paine,  who  stole  another  man's  wife  in  England 
and  brought  her  to  this  land — Thomas  Paine,  who  was  so 
squalid  and  so  loathsome  and  so  drunken  and  so  profligate 
and  so  beastly  in  his  habits,  sometimes  picked  out  of  the 
ditch,  sometimes  too  filthy  to  be  picked  out, — Thomas  Paine, 
one  would  have  thought  that  he  could  have  been  depended 
on  for  steadfastness  against  this  great  delusion.  But  no.  In 
his  dying  hour  he  begs  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  for  mercy. 

Powerful  delusion  !  All-conquering  delusion  !  Earth- 
quaking delusion  of  the  Christian  religion  !  Yea,  it  goes  on  ; 
it  is  so  impertinent  and  it  is  so  overbearing,  this  chimera  of 
the  Gospel,  that  having  conquered  the  great  picture-galleries 
of  the  world,  the  old  masters  and  the  young  masters,  it  is 
not  satisfied  until  it  has  conquered  the  vmsic  of  the  world. 

Look  over  the  programme  of  a  magnificent  musical 
festival  in  New  York,  and  see  what  are  the  great  performances, 


I08  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  learn  that  the  greatest  of  all  the  subjects  are  religious 
subjects.  Three  thousand  voices  accompanied  with  a  vast 
number  of  instruments!  "  Israel  in  Egypt."  Yes,  Beethoven 
deluded  until  he  wrote  the  High  Mass  in  D  Major.  Hadyn 
deluded  with  this  religion  until  he  wrote  the  "  Creation." 
Handel  deluded  until  he  wrote  the  oratorios  of  "Jephtha," 
and  "  Esther,"  and  "  Saul,"  and  "  Israel  in  Egypt,"  and  the 
"  Messiah."  Last  Friday  night,  three  thousand  deluded 
people  singing  of  a  delusion  to  eight  thousand  deluded 
hearers ! 

Yea,  this  chimera  of  the  Bible  is  not  satisfied  until  it 
goes  on  and  builds  itself  into  the  most  permanent  architec- 
ture— so  it  seems  as  if  the  world  is  never  to  get  rid  of  it. 
What  are  .some  of  the  finest  buildings  in  the  world  ?  St. 
Paul's,  St.  Peter's,  the  churches  and  cathedrals  of  all  Chris- 
tendom. 

I  was  impressed  in  journeying  on  the  other  side  the  sea 
with  the  difference  the  Bible  makes  in  countries.  The  two 
nations  of  Europe  that  are  the  most  moral  to-day,  and  that 
have  the  least  crime,  are  Scotland  and  Wales.  They  have  by 
statistics,  as  you  might  find,  fewer  thefts,  fewer  arsons,  fewer 
murders.  What  is  the  reason  ?  A  bad  book  can  liardl}'  live 
in  Wales.  The  Bible  crowds  it  out.  I  was  told  bj-  one  of 
the  first  literary  men  in  Wales  :  "  There  is  not  a  bad  book  in 
the  Welsh  language."  He  said  :  "  Bad  books  come  down 
from  London,  but  they  cannot  live  here."  It  is  the  Bible 
that  is  dominant  in  Wales.  And  then  in  Scotland  just  open 
your  Bible  to  give  out  your  text,  and  there  is  a  rustling  all 
over  the  house  almost  startling  to  an  American.  What  is  it  ? 
The  people  opening  their  Bibles  find  the  text,  looking  at  the 
context,  picking  out  the  referenced  passages,  seeing  whether 
you  make  right  quotation.  Scotland  and  Wales,  Bible-read- 
ing people.  That  accounts  for  it.  A  man,  a  city,  a  nation 
that  reads  God's  Word  must  be  virtuous.  That  Book  is 
the  foe  of  all  wrong-doing.  What  makes  Edinburgh  better 
than  Constantinople  ?     The  Bible. 

I  was  also  impressed  in  m\' transatlantic  journeys  with  the 
wonderful  power  that  Christ  holds  among  the  nations.     The 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  IO9 

great  name  in  Europe  to-day  is  not  Victoria,  not  Marquis  of 
Salisbury,  not  William  the  Emperor,  not  Bismark ;  the  great 
name  in  Europe  to-day  is  Christ,  You  find  the  crucifix  on 
gate-post,  you  find  it  in  the  hay-field,  you  find  it  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  manor,  yau  find  it  by  the  side  of  the  road. 

The  greatest  pictures  in  all  the  galleries  of  Italy,  Germany, 
France,  England,  and  Scotland  are  Bible  pictures.  The 
mightiest  picture  on  this  planet  is  Rubens'  **  Scourging  of 
Christ,"  Painter's  pencil  loves  to  sketch  the  face  of  Christ. 
Sculptor's  chisel  loves  to  present  the  form  of  Christ,  Organs 
love  to  roll  forth  the  sorrows  of  Christ, 

The  first  time  you  go  to  London  go  into  the  Dore  pict- 
ure-gallery. As  I  went  and  sat  down  before  '*  Christ  De- 
scending the  Steps  of  the  Praetorium  "  at  the  first  I  was 
disappointed.  I  said  :  "  There  isn't  enough  majesty  in 
that  countenance,  not  enough  tenderness  in  that  eye ;" 
but  as  I  sat  and  looked  at  the  picture  it  grew  upon  me 
until  I  was  overwhelmed  with  its  power,  and  I  staggered 
with  emotion  as  I  went  out  into  the  fresh  air,  and  said  :  "  Oh, 
for  that  Christ  I  must  live,  and  for  that  Christ  I  must 
be  M'illing  to  die  !"  Make  that  Christ  your  personal  friend, 
my  sister,  my  brother.  You  may  never  go  to  Milan  to 
see  Da  Vinci's  "  Last  Supper ;"  but,  better  than  that,  you 
can  have  Christ  come  and  sup  with  you.  You  may  never 
get  to  Antwerp  to  see  Rubens'  "  Descent  of  Christ  from  the 
Cross,"  but  you  can  have  Christ  come  down  from  the  moun- 
tain of  His  suffering  into  your  heart  and  abide  there  forever. 
Oh,  you  must  have  him  ! 

A   GREAT  CHANGE. 

You  began  with  thinking  that  the  Christian  religion  was 
a  stupid  farce ;  you  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  a 
reality. 

There  is  something  the  matter  with  yoii.  All  your  friends 
have  found  out  there  is  a  great  change.  And  if  some  of  you 
would  give  your  experience  you  would  give  it  in  scholarly 
style,  and  others  giving  your  experience  would  give  it  in 


no  TKU.UPET  PEALS. 

broken  style,  but  the  one  experience  would  be  just  as  good 
as  the  other.  Some  of  you  have  read  everything.  You  arc 
scientific  and  you  arc  scholarly,  and  yet  if  I  should  ask  you, 
"  What  is  the  most  sensible  thing  you  ever  did  ?"  you  would 
say,  "  The  most  sensible  thing  I  ever  did  was  to  give  my 
heart  to  God." 

But  there  may  be  others  who  have  not  had  early  advan- 
tages, and  if  they  were  asked  to  give  their  experience,  they 
might  give  such  testimony  as  the  man  gave  in  a  prayer  meet- 
ing when  he  said  :  "  On  my  way  here  to-night,  I  met  a  man 
who  asked  me  where  I  was  going.  I  said,  '  I  am  going  to 
prayer  meeting.'  He  said,  '  There  are  a  good  many  religions 
and  I  think  the  most  of  them  are  delusions  ;  as  to  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  that  is  only  a  notion,  that  is  a  mere  notion,  the 
Christian  religion.'  I  said  to  him  :  '  Stranger,  you  sec  that 
tavern  over  there?'  '  Yes,'  he  said,  '  I  see  it.'  '  Do  you  see 
me  ?'  '  Yes,  of  course  I  see  you.'  *  Now,  the  time  was,  every- 
body in  this  town  knows,  when  if  I  had  a  quarter  of  a  dollar 
in  my  pocket  I  could  not  pass  that  tavern  without  going  in 
and  getting  a  drink;  all  the  people  of  Jefferson  could  not 
keep  me  out  of  that  place  ;  but  God  has  changed  m}-  heart, 
and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  destroyed  my  thirst  for  strong 
drink,  and  there  is  my  whole  week's  wages,  and  I  have  no 
temptation  to  go  in  there;'  and,  stranger,  if  this  is  a  notion 
I  want  to  tell  you  it  is  a  mighty  powerful  notion  :  a  notion 
that  has  put  clothes  on  my  children's  backhand  it  is  a  notion 
that  has  put  good  food  on  our  table,  and  it  is  a  notion  that 
has  filled  my  mouth  with  thanksgiving  to  God.  And, 
stranger,  you  better  go  along  with  me,  you  might  get  relig- 
ion too;  lots  of  people  are  getting  religion  now.'" 

Yes,  the  Bible  is  right  in  its  effects,  I  do  not  care  where 
you  put  the  Bible,  it  just  suits  the  place.  You  put  it  in  the 
hand  of  a  man  seriously  concerned  about  his  soul.  I  see 
peojile  often  giving  to  the  seritnis  soul  this  and  that  book. 
It  may  be  very  well,  but  there  is  no  book  like  the  liiblc.  He 
reads  the  commandments  and  pleads  to  the  indictment, 
"Guilty."  lie  takes  up  the  Psalms  of  David  and  saj's: 
"They  just  describe  my  feelings."      He  flics  to  good  works; 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY   CONFUTED.  Ill 

Paul  starts  him  out  of  that  by  the  announcement:  "A  man 
is  not  justified  by  works."  He  falls  back  in  his  discourage- 
ment ;  the  Bible  starts  him  up  with  the  sentences :  "  Re- 
member Lot's  wife,"  "  Grieve  not  the  Spirit,"  "  Flee  the 
wrath  to  come."  Then  the  man  in  despair  begins  to  cry 
out:  "  What  shall  I  do  ?  where  shall  I  go?"  and  a  voice 
reaches  him  saying :  "  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

Yea,  this  delusion  of  the  Christian  religion  shows  itself 
in  the  fact  that  it  goes  to  tJiose  who  are  in  trouble.  Now,  it 
is  bad  enough  to  cheat  a  man  when  he  is  well  and  when  he 
is  prosperous  ;  but  this  religion  comes  to  a  man  when  he  is 
sick,  and  says  :  "  You  will  be  well  again  after  a  while  ;  you 
are  going  into  a  land  where  there  are  no  coughs  and  no 
pleurisies  and  no  consumptions  and  no  languishing;  take 
courage  and  bear  up."  Yea,  this  awful  chimera  of  the  Bible 
comes  to  the  poor  and  it  says  to  them :  "  You  are  on  your 
way  to  vast  estates  and  to  dividends  always  declarable." 

Suppose  that  there  was  a  great  pestilence  going  over  the 
earth,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  were  dying  of  that 
pestilence,  and  some  one  should  find  a  medicine  that  cured 
ten  thousand  people,  would  not  everybody  acknowledge  that 
that  must  be  a  good  medicine?  Why,  some  one  would  say : 
*'  Do  you  deny  it  ?  There  have  been  ten  thousand  people 
cured  by  it."  I  simply  state  the  fact  that  there  have  been 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Christian  men  and  women  who  say 
they  have  felt  the  truthfulness  of  that  Book  and  its  power 
in  their  souls.  It  has  cured  them  of  the  worst  leprosy  that 
ever  came  down  on  our  earth,  namely,  the  leprosy  of  sin ; 
and  if  I  can  point  you  to  multitudes  who  say  they  have  felt 
the  povv-er  of  that  cure,  are  you,  not  reasonable  enough  to 
acknowledge  the  fact  that  there  must  be  some  power  in  the 
medicine  ?  Will  you  take  the  evidence  of  millions  of  patients 
who  have  been  cured,  or  will  you  take  the  evidence  of  the 
sceptic  who  stands  aloof  and  confesses  that  he  never  took 
the  medicine  ? 


112  TRLMI'ET  PEALS. 


A   BALM   FOR  THE   WEARY. 


Take  this  Bible  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  men  in  trouble  ? 
Is  there  anybody  here  in  trouble  ?  Ah,  I  mifjht  better  ask  are 
there  any  here  who  have  never  been  in  trouble.  Put  this  Bible 
in  the  hands  of  the  troubled.  You  find  that  as  some  of  the 
best  berries  grow  on  the  sharpest  thorns,  so  some  of  the 
sweetest  consolations  of  the  Gospel  grow  on  the  most  sting- 
ing affliction.  You  thought  that  Death  had  grasped  your 
child.  Oh,  no!  It  was  only  the  heavenly  Shepherd  taking 
a  Iamb  out  of  the  cold.  Christ  bent  over  you  as  you  held 
the  child  in  your  lap,  and  putting  His  arms  gently  around 
the  little  one,  said :  "  Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

BEYOND   THE   GRAVE. 

This  delusion  of  Christianity  comes  to  the  bereft  and 
talks  of  reunion  before  the  throne,  and  of  the  cessation 
of  all  sorrow.  And  then  to  show  that  this  delusion  will 
stop  at  absolutely  nothing,  it  goes  to  the  dying  bed  and 
fills  the  man  with  anticipations.  How  much  better  it  would 
be  to  have  him  die  without  any  more  hope  than  swine  and 
rats  and  snakes.  Shovel  him  under  !  That  is  all.  Nothing 
more  left  of  him.  He  will  never  know  anything  again. 
Shovel  him  under?  The  soul  is  only  a  superior  part  of  the 
body,  and  when  the  body  disintegrates  the  soul  disintegrates. 
Annihilation,  vacancy,  everlasting  blank,  obliteration.  Why 
not  present  all  that  beautiful  doctrine  to  the  d}-ing,  instead 
of  coming  with  this  hoax,  this  swindle  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, and  filling  the  dying  man  with  anticipations  of  another 
life,  until  some  in  the  last  hour  have  clapped  their  hands, 
and  some  have  shouted  and  some  have  sung,  and  some  have 
been  so  overwrought  with  joy  they  could  only  look  ecstatic. 
Palace  gates  opening,  they  thought — diamonded  coronets 
flashing — hands  beckoning,  orchestras  sounding.  Little 
children  dying  actually  believing  they  saw  their  departed 
parents,  so   that   although   the    little    children   had  been  so 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  II3 

weak  and  feeble  and  sick  for  weeks  they  could  not  turn  on 
their  dying  pillow,  at  the  last,  in  a  paroxysm  of  rapture  un- 
controllable they  sprang  to  their  feet  and  shouted  :  "  Mother, 
catch  me,  I  am  coming!" 

And  to  show  the  immensity  of  this  delusion,  this  awful 
swindle  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  open  a  hospital  and 
I  bring  into  that  hospital  the  death-beds  of  a  great  many 
Christian  people,  and  I  take  you  by  the  hand  this  morning 
and  I  walk  up  and  down  the  wards  of  that  hospital,  and  I 
ask  a  few  questions. 

I  ask,  "  Dying  Stephen,  what  have  you  to  say?"  "  Lord 
Jesus,  receive  my  spirit."  "  Dying  John  Wesley,  what  have 
you  to  say  ?"  "  The  best  of  all  is  God  is  with  us."  ''  Dying 
Edward  Payson,  what  have  you  to  say?"  "  I  float  in  a  sea 
of  glory."  "  Dying  John  Bradford,  what  have  you  to  say  ?" 
**  If  there  be  any  way  of  going  to  heaven  on  horseback,  or  in 
a  fiery  chariot,  it  is  this."  "  Dying  Neander,  what  have  you 
to  say  ?"  "  I  am  going  to  sleep  now — good-night."  "  Dying 
Mrs.  Florence  Foster,  what  have  you  to  say  ?"  "  A  pilgrim 
in  the  valley,  but  the  mountain  tops  arc  all  agleam  from 
peak  to  peak."  "  Dying  Alexander  Mather,  what  have  you 
to  say?"  "  The  Lord  who  has  taken  care  of  me  fifty  years, 
will  not  cast  me  off  now ;  glory  be  to  God  and  to  the  Lamb! 
Amen,  amen,  amen,  amen  !" 

"  Dying  John  Powson,  after  preaching  the  Gospel  so  many 
years,  what  have  you  to  say  ?"  "  My  death-bed  is  a  bed  of 
roses."  "  Dying  Doctor  Thomas  Scott,  what  have  you  to 
say?"  "This  is  Heaven  begun."  "Dying  soldier  in  the 
last  war,  what  have  you  to  say  ?"  "  Boys,  I  am  going  to  the 
front."  "  Dying  telegraph  operator  on  the  battlefield  of 
Virginia,  what  have  you  to  say?"  "  The  wires  are  all  laid, 
and  the  poles  are  up  from  Stony  Point  to  headquarters." 
"  Dying  Paul,  what  have  you  to  say  ?"  "  I  am  now  ready  to 
be  offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand  ;  I  have 
fought  the  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept 
the  faith.  O  !  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  !  grave,  where 
is  thy  victory  ?  Thanks  be  unto  God  who  giveth  us  the  vic- 
tory through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


1  r  4  TK  i  'MP/-:  T  PI:  A  I.  S. 

O  !  my  Lord,  my  God,  what  a  delusion  !  What  a 
glorious  delusion !  Submerge  me  with  it,  fill  my  eyes 
and  ears  with  it,  put  it  under  my  dying  head  for  a  pil- 
low— this  delusion — spread  it  over  me  for  a  canopy,  put 
it  underneath  me  for  an  outspread  wing — roll  it  over  me  in 
ocean  surges  ten  thousand  fathoms  deep.  O  !  if  infidelit\', 
and  if  atheism,  and  if  annihilation  are  a  reality,  and  the 
Christian  religion  is  a  delusion,  give  me  the  delusion. 
The  strong  conclusion  of  every  man  and  woman  must  be, 
that  Christianity  producing  such  grand  results  cannot  be  a 
delusion.  A  lie,  a  cheat,  a  swindle,  an  hallucination  cannot 
launch  such  a  glory  of  the  centuries.  Your  logic  and  your 
common  sense  convince  you  that  a  bad  cause  cannot  pro- 
duce an  illustrious  result  ;  out  of  the  womb  of  such  a  mon- 
ster no  such  angel  can  be  born. 

Well,  we  will  soon  understand  it  all.  Your  life  and  mine 
will  soon  be  over.  We  will  soon  come  to  the  last  bar  of  the 
music,  to  the  last  act  of  the  tragedy,  to  the  last  page  of  the 
book — yea,  to  the  last  line  and  to  the  last  word,  and  to  you 
and  to  me  it  will  cither  be  midnoon  or  midnight  ! 


ROUSSEAU'S  DREAM. 

Rousseau,  the  infidel,  fell  asleep  amid  his  sceptical  manu- 
script lying  all  around  the  room,  and  in  his  dream  he  en- 
tered heaven  and  heard  the  song  of  the  worshippers,  and  it 
was  so  sweet  he  asked  an  angel  what  it  meant.  The  angel 
said  :  "  This  is  the  Paradise  of  God,  and  the  song  you  hear  is 
the  anthem  of  the  redeemed."  Under  another  roll  of  the 
celestial  music  Rousseau  wakened  and  got  up  in  the  mid- 
night and  as  well  as  he  could  wrote  down  the  strains  of  the 
music  that  he  had  heard  in  the  wonderful  tune  called  the 
Songs  of  the  Redeemed.  God  grant  that  it  may  not  be  to 
you  and  to  me  an  infidel  dream  but  a  glorit>us  realit}\  When 
we  come  to  the  night  of  death  and  we  lie  tlown  to  our  last 
sleep,  may  our  ears  really  be  wakenetl  b)'thc  canticles  of  the 
heavenly  temple,  and   the  songs  and  the  anthems    and  the 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  II5 

carols  and  the  doxologies  that  shall  climb  the  musical  lad- 
der of  that  heavenly  gamut. 

Colonel  Ethan  Allen  was  a  famous  infidel  in  his  day.  His 
wife  was  a  very  consecrated  woman.  The  mother  instructed 
the  daughter  in  the  truths  of  Christianity.  The  daughter 
sickened  and  was  about  to  die,  and  she  said  to  her  father: 
"  Father,  shall  I  take  your  instruction  ?  or  shall  I  take 
mother's  instruction  ?  I  am  going  to  die  now  ;  I  must  have 
this  matter  decided."  That  man,  who  had  been  loud  in  his 
infidelity,  said  to  his  dying  daughter  :  "  My  dear,  you  had 
better  take  your  mother's  religion."  My  advice  is  the  same 
to  you,  O  !  young  man  ;  you  had  better  take  your  mother's 
religion.  You  know  how  it  comforted  her.  You  know  what 
she  said  to  you  when  she  was  dying.  You  had  better  take 
your  mother's  religion. 

THE   BIBLE — THE   BOOK   OF   BOOKS. 

The  Bible  is  a  great  poem.  We  have  in  it  faultless  rhythm, 
bold  imagery,  starthng  antithesis,  rapturous  lyric,  sweet  pas- 
toral, instructive  narrative  and  devotional  psalm  ;  thoughts 
expressed  in  style  more  solemn  than  that  of  Montgomery, 
more  bold  than  that  of  Milton,  more  terrible  than  that  of 
Dante,  more  natural  than  that  of  Wordsworth,  more  impas- 
sioned than  that  of  Pollok,  more  tender  than  that  of  Cowper, 
more  weird  than  that  of  Spenser. 

This  great  poem  brings  all  the  gems  of  the  earth  into  its 
coronet,  weaves  the  fiames  of  judgment  into  its  garlands, 
and  pours  eternal  harmonies  in  its  rhythm.  Everything  this 
book  touches  it  makes  beautiful,  from  the  plain  stones  of 
the  summer  threshing  floor  to  the  daughter  of  Nahor  filling 
the  trough  for  the  camels ;  from  the  fish  pools  of  Heshbon 
up  to  the  Psalmist  praising  God  with  diapason  of  storm  and 
whirlwind,  and  Job's  imagery  of  Orion,  Arcturus,  and  the 
Pleiades. 

Old  books  go  out  of  date.  When  they  were  written 
they  discussed  questions  which  were  being  discussed  :  they 
struck  at  wrongs  which  had  long  ago  ceased,  or  advocated  in- 


I  1 6  TR  UMPE  r  PEA  L S. 

stitutions  which  excite  not  our  interest.  Were  tliey  books  of 
history,  the  facts  have  been  gathered  from  the  imperfect 
mass,  better  classified  and  more  lucidly  presented.  Were 
they  books  of  poetry,  they  were  interlocked  with  wild  my- 
thologies which  have  gone  up  from  the  face  of  the  earth  like 
mists  at  sunrise.  Were  they  books  of  morals,  civilization 
will  not  sit  at  the  feet  of  barbarism  ;  neither  do  we  want 
Sappho,  Pythagoras  and  Tully  to  teach  us  morals.  What 
do  the  masses  of  the  people  care  now  for  the  pathos  of 
Simonides,  or  the  sarcasm  of  Menander,  or  the  gracefulness 
of  Philemon,  or  "the  wit  of  Aristophanes?  Even  the  old 
books  we  have  left,  with  a  few  exceptions,  have  but  very 
little  effect  upon  our  times.  Books  are  human  ;  they  have 
a  time  to  be  born,  they  are  fondled,  they  grow  in  strength, 
they  have  a  middle  life  of  usefulness ;  then  comes  old  age ; 
— they  totter  and  they  die.  Many  of  the  national  libraries 
are  merely  the  cemeteries  of  dead  books.  Some  of  them 
lived  flagitious  lives  and  died  deaths  of  ignominy.  Some 
were  virtuous  and  accomplished  a  glorious  mission.  Some 
went  into  the  ashes  through  inquisitorial  fires.  Some  found 
their  funeral  pile  in  sacked  and  plundered  cities.  Some 
were  neglected  and  died  as  foundlings  at  the  door  of  science. 
Some  expired  in  the  author's  study,  others  in  the  publisher's 
hands.  Ever  and  anon  there  comes  into  your  possession  an 
old  book,  its  author  forgotten  and  its  usefulness  done,  and 
with  leathern  hps  it  seems  to  say :  "  I  wish  I  were  dead." 
Monuments  have  been  raised  over  poets  and  philanthropists. 
Would  that  some  tall  shaft  might  be  erected  in  honor  of  the 
world's  buried  books !  The  world's  authors  would  make 
pilgrimage  thereto,  and  poetr)-,  and  literature,  and  science, 
and  religion  would  consecrate  it  with  their  tears. 

Not  so  with  one  old  book.  It  started  in  the  world's 
infancy.  It  grew  under  theocracy  and  monarch)'.  It  with- 
stood storms  of  fire.  It  grew  under  prophet's  mantle  and 
under  the  fisherman's  coat  of  the  apostles ;  in  Rome  and 
Ephesus  and  Jerusalem  and  Patnios.  T}-ranny  issued  edicts 
against  it,  and  infidelity  put  out  the  tongue,  and  Mohamme- 
danism from  its  mosques  hurled  its  anathemas,  but  the  old 


IXGERSOLLIAN  IXFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  H/ 

Bible  still  lived.  It  crossed  the  British  Channel  and  was 
greeted  by  Wickcliffe  and  James  I.  It  crossed  the  Atlantic 
and  struck  Plymouth  Rock,  until,  like  that  of  Horeb,  it 
gushed  with  blessedness.  Churches  and  asylums  have  gath- 
ered all  along  its  way,  ringing  their  bells  and  stretching  out 
their  hands  of  blessing ;  and  every  Sabbath  there  are  ten 
thousand  heralds  of  the  cross  with  their  hands  on  this  open, 
grand,  free,  old  English  Bible. 

It  will  not  have  accomplished  its  mission  until  it  has 
climbed  the  icy  mountains  of  Greenland ;  until  it  has  gone 
over  the  granite  cliffs  of  China ;  until  it  has  thrown  its  glow 
amid  the  Australian  mines ;  until  it  has  scattered  its  gems 
among  the  diamond  districts  of  Brazil ;  and  all  thrones  shall 
be  gathered  into  one  throne,  and  all  crowns  by  the  fires  of 
revolution  shall  be  melted  into  one  crown,  and  this  Book 
shall  at  the  very  gate  of  heaven  have  waved  in  the  ransomed 
empires.  Not  until  then  will  this  glorious  Bible  have  ac- 
complished its  mission. 

Nine  tenths  of  all  the  good  Hterature  of  this  age  is  merely 
the  Bible  diluted.  Goethe,  the  admired  of  all  sceptics,  had 
the  wall  of  his  house  at  Weimar  covered  with  religious  maps 
and  pictures.  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost"  is  part  of  the  Bible 
in  blank  verse.  Tasso's  "  Jerusalem  Delivered  "  is  borrowed 
from  the  Bible.  Spenser's  writings  are  imitations  of  the 
parables.  John  Bunyan  saw  in  a  dream  only  what  St.  John 
had  seen  before  in  Apocalyptic  vision.  Macaulay  crowns 
his  most  thrilling  sentences  with  Scripture  quotations. 
Thomas  Carlyle  is  only  a  splendid  distortion  of  Ezekiel ;  and 
w^andering  through  the  lanes  and  parks  of  this  imperial  do- 
main of  Bible  truth,  I  find  all  the  great  American,  English, 
German,  Spanish,  Italian  poets,  painters,  orators  and  rheto- 
ricians. 

Again,  the  Bible  is  right  in  style,  I  am  fascinated  with 
the  conciseness  yet  greatfulness  of  this  Book.  Every  word 
is  packed  full  of  truth.  Every  sentence  is  double  barrelled. 
Every  paragraph  is  like  an  old  banyan-tree  with  a  hundred 
roots  and  a  hundred  branches.  It  is  a  great  arch  ;  pull  out 
one  stone  and  it  all  comes  down.     There  has  never  been  a 


I  1 8  TR  UMPE  T  PEA  L  S. 

pearl-diver  who  could  gather  up  one  half  of  the  treasures  in 
any  verse.  John  Halsebach,  of  Vienna,  for  t\vent}'-one  years 
every  Sabbath  expounded  to  his  congregations  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  and  yet  did  not  get  through 
with  it. 

Where  is  there  in  the  Avorld  of  poetic  description  any- 
thing like  Job's  champing,  neighing,  pawing,  lightning- 
footed,  thunder-necked  war  horse?  Dryden's,  Milton's, 
Cowper's  tempests  are  very  tame  compared  with  David's 
storm  that  wrecks  the  mountains  of  Lebanon  and  shivers 
the  wilderness  of  Kadish.  Why,  it  seems  as  if  to  the  feet 
of  these  Bible  writers  mountains  brought  all  their  gems, 
and  the  seas  all  their  pearls,  and  the  gardens  all  their  frank- 
incense, and  the  spring  all  its  blossoms,  and  the  harvests  all 
their  wealth,  and  heaven  all  its  grandeur,  and  eternity  all 
its  stupendous  realities ;  and  that  since  then  poets,  and 
orators,  and  rhetoricians  have  been  drinking  from  exhausted 
fountains,  and  searching  for  diamonds  in  a  realm  utterly 
rifled  and  ransacked. 

This  Book  is  the  hive  of  all  sweetness.  It  is  the  armory 
of  all  well-tempered  weapons.  It  is  the  tower  containing 
the  crown  jewels  of  the  universe.  It  is  the  lamp  that  kin- 
dles all  other  lights.  It  is  the  home  of  all  majesties  and 
splendors.  It  is  the  marriage  ring  that  unites  the  celestial 
and  the  terrestrial,  while  all  the  clustering  white-robed  deni- 
zens of  the  sky  hovering  around  rejoice  at  the  nuptials. 
This  Book — it  is  the  wreath  into  which  are  twisted  all  gar- 
lands ;  it  is  the  song  into  which  are  struck  all  harmonies  ;  it 
is  the  river  into  which  are  poured  all  the  great  tides  of  hal- 
lelujah ;  it  is  the  firmament  in  which  suns  and  moons  ami 
stars  and  constellations  and  universes  and  eternities  wheel 
and  blaze  and  triumph.  Where  is  the  young  man's  soul  with 
any  music  in  it  that  is  not  stirred  with  Jacob's  lament,  or 
Nahum's  dirge,  or  Habakkuk's  dithyrambic,  or  Paul's  march 
of  the  resurrection? 

I  am  also  amazed  at  the  variety  of  this  Book.  Mind  you, 
not  contradiction  or  collision,  but  variety.  Just  as  in  the 
song  you  have  the  basso  and  alto  and  soprano  and  tenor — 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  IIQ 

they  are  not  in  collision  with  each  "other  but  come  in  to 
make  up  the  harmony.  So  it  is  in  this  Book;  there  are 
different  parts  of  this  great  song  of  redemption.  The 
prophet  comes  and  takes  one  part,  and  the  patriarch  another 
part,  and  the  evangelist  another  part,  and  the  apostles  an- 
other part,  and  yet  they  all  come  into  the  grand  harmony — 
"  the  song  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb."  God  prepared  the  Book 
for  all  classes  of  people.  For  instance,  little  children  would 
read  the  Bible,  and  God  knew  that ;  so  He  allows  Matthew 
and  Luke  to  write  sweet  stories  about  Christ  with  the  doc- 
tors of  the  law,  and  Christ  at  the  well,  and  Christ  at  the 
cross,  so  that  any  httle  child  can  understand  them.  Then 
God  knew  that  the  aged  people  would  want  to  read  the 
Book,  so  He  allows  Solomon  to  compact  a  world  of  wisdom 
in  that  Book  of  Proverbs.  God  knew  that  the  historian 
would  want  to  read  it,  and  so  He  allows  Moses  to  give  the 
plain' statement  of  the  Pentateuch.  God  knew  that  the  poet 
would  want  to  read  it,  and  so  He  allows  Job  to  picture  the 
heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  Isaiah  the  mountains  as  weighed 
in  a  balance,  and  the  waters  as  held  in  the  hollow  of  the 
Omnipotent  hand  ;  and  God  touched  David  until  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  Psalms,  he  gathers  a  great  choir  standing  in 
galleries  above  each  other — beasts  and  men  in  the  first  gallery  ; 
above  them,  hills  and  mountains ;  above  theni,  fire  and  hail 
and  tempest ;  above  them,  sun  and  moon  and  stars  of  light ; 
and  on  the  highest  gallery  arrays  the  hosts  of  angels ;  and 
then  standing  before  this  great  choir,  reaching  from  the 
depths  of  earth  to  the  heights  of  heaven,  like  the  leader  of 
a  great  orchestra,  he  lifts  his  hands  crying:  "Praise  the 
Lord.  Let  everything  that  hath  breath,  praise  the  Lord  ;  " 
and  all  earthly  creatures  in  their  song,  and  mountains  with 
their  waving  cedars,  and  tempests  in  their  thunder,  and  rat- 
tling hail,  and  stars  on  all  their  trembling  harps  of  light, 
and  angels  on  their  thrones,  respond  in  magnificent  acclaim  : 
"  Praise  ye  the  Lord.  Let  everything  that  hath  breath, 
praise  the  Lord." 

There  are  many  who  would  have  you   believe  that  the 
Bible  is  an  outlandish  book,  and  obsolete.     It  is  fresher  and 


I20  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

more  intense  than  any  book  that  yesterday  came  out  of  the 
great  publishing  houses.  "  O,"  you  say,  "  it  was  made  hun- 
dreds of  years  ago,  and  the  learned  men  of  King  James 
translated  it  hundreds  of  years  ago."  I  confute  that  idea  by 
telling  you  it  is  not  five  minutes  old,  when  God,  by  His 
blessed  Spirit  retranslates  it  into  the  heart.  If,  in  seeking  the 
way  of  life  through  Scripture  study,  you  implore  God's  light 
to  fall  upon  the  page,  you  will  find  that  these  promises  are 
not  one  second  old,  and  that  they  drop  straight  from  the 
throne  of  God  into  your  heart. 

There  are  many  people  to  whom  the  Bible  does  not 
amount  to  much.  If  they  merely  look  at  the  outside  beauty, 
it  will  no  more  lead  them  to  Christ  than  Washington's  fare- 
well address,  the  Koran  of  Mahomet  or  the  Shaster  of  the 
Hindoos.  It  is  the  inward  light  of  God's  Word  you  must 
get  or  die.  I  went  up  to  the  church  of  the  Madeleine,  in 
Paris,  and  looked  at  the  doors  which  were  the  most  wonder- 
fully constructed  I  ever  saw,  and  I  could  have  staid  there  for 
a  whole  week  ;  but  I  had  only  a  little  time,  and  so,  having 
glanced  at  the  wonderful  carving  on  the  doors,  I  passed  in 
and  looked  at  the  radiant  altars,  and  the  sculptured  dome. 
Alas!  that  so  many  stop  at  the  outside  door  of  God's  Holy 
Word,  looking  at  the  rhetorical  beauties,  instead  of  going  in 
and  looking  at  the  altars  of  sacrifice  and  the  dome  of  God's 
mercy  and  salvation  that  hovers  over  every  penitent  and  be- 
lieving soul ! 

0  my  friends,  if  you  merely  want  to  study  the  laws  of 
language,  do  not  go  to  the  Bible.  It  was  not  made  for  that. 
Take  "  Howe's  Elements  of  Criticism" — it  will  be  better  than 
the  Bible  for  that.  If  you  want  to  study  metaphysics,  better 
than  the  Bible  will  be  the  writings  of  William  Hamilton. 
But  if  you  want  to  know  how  to  have  sin  pardoned,  and  at 
last  to  gain  the  blessedness  of  Heaven,  "  Search  the  Scrip- 
tures, for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have  eternal  life." 

1  know  there  are  many  people  who  regard  the  Bible  as 
merely  a  collection  of  genealogical  tables  and  dry  facts.  That 
is  because  they  do  not  know  how  to  read  the  book.  You 
take  up  the  most  interesting  novel  that  was  ever  written, 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  121 

and  if  you  commence  at  the  four-hundredth  page  to-day, 
and  to-morrow  at  the  three-hundredth,  and  the  next  day  at 
the  first  page,  how  much  sense  or  interest  would  you  get 
from  it  ?  Yet  that  is  the  very  process  to  which  the  Bible  is 
subjected  every  day.  An  angel  from  heaven,  reading  the 
Bible  in  that  way,  could  not  understand  it.  The  Bible,  like 
all  other  palaces,  has  a  door  by  which  to  enter  and  a  door 
by  which  to  go  out.  Genesis  is  the  door  to  go  in  and  Reve- 
lation the  door  to  go  out. 

The  epistles  of  Paul  the  Apostle  are  merely  letters 
written,  folded  up  and  sent  by  couriers  to  the  different 
churches.  Do  you  read  other  letters  the  way  you  read  Paul's 
letters  ?  Suppose  you  get  a  business  letter,  and  you  know 
that  in  it  there  are  important  financial  propositions,  do  you 
read  the  last  page  first  and  then  one  line  of  the  third  page, 
and  another  of  the  second,  and  another  of  the  first  ?  No. 
You  begin  with  "  Dear  sir"  and  end  with  "Yours  truly." 
Now,  here  is  a  letter  from  the  throne  of  God  written  to  our 
lost  world  ;  it  is  full  of  magnificent  hopes  and  propositions, 
and  we  dip  in  here  and  there,  and  we  know  nothing  about  it. 
Besides  that,  people  read  the  Bible  when  they  cannot  do 
anything  else.  It  is  a  dark  day,  and  they  do  not  feel  well, 
and  they  do  not  go  to  business,  and  after  lounging  about  a  bit 
they  pick  up  the  Bible — their  mind  refuses  to  enjoy  the 
truth.  Or  they  come  home  weary  from  the  store  or  shop, 
and  they  feel,  if  they  do  not  say,  it  is  a  dull  book.  While 
the  Bible  is  to  be  read  on  stormy  days  and  while  your  head 
aches,  it  is  also  to  be  read  in  the  sunshine  and  when  your 
nerves  hke  harp-strings  thrum  the  song  of  health.  While 
your  vision  is  clear,  walk  in  this  paradise  of  truth,  and  while 
your  mental  appetite  is  good,  pluck  these  clusters  of  grace. 

O,  I  am  afraid  in  America  we  are  allowing  the  good 
Book  to  be  covered  up  with  other  good  books  !  We  have 
our  ever-welcome  morning  and  evening  newspapers,  and  we 
have  our  good  books  on  all  subjects — geological  subjects, 
botanical  subjects,  physiological  subjects,  theological  sub- 
jects— good  books,  beautiful  books,  and  so  many  good 
books  that  we  have    not  time  to  read  the   Bible.     O  my 


122  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

fricMuls,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  very  great  importance  that  you 
liave  a  family  Bible  on  the  centre-table  in  your  parlor!  Bet- 
ter have  one  pocket  New  Testament,  the  passages  marked, 
the  leaves  turned  down,  the  binding  worn  smooth  with  much 
usage,  than  fifty  pictorial  family  Bibles  too  handsome  to 
read !  O,  let  us  take  a  whisk-broom  and  brush  the  dust  off 
our  Bibles  !  Do  you  want  poetry?  Go  and  hear  Job  de- 
scribe the  war-horse,  or  David  tell  how  the  mountains 
skipped  like  lambs.  Do  you  want  logic  ?  Go  and  hear 
Paul  reason  until  your  brain  aches  under  the  spell  of  his 
mighty  intellect.  Do  you  want  history  ?  Go  and  see 
Moses  put  into  a  few  pages  stupendous  information  which 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Prescott  never  reached  after. 
And,  after  all,  if  you  want  to  find  how  a  nation  struck 
down  by  sin  can  rise  to  happiness  and  to  heaven,  read  of 
that  blood  which  can  wash  away  the  pollution  of  a  world. 
There  is  one  passage  in  the  Bible  of  vast  tonnage  :  "  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life."  O,  may  God  fill  this  country  with  Bibles  and 
helj)  the  people  to  read  them  ! 

Palsied  be  the  hand  that  would  take  the  Bible  from  the 
college  and  the  school.  Educate  only  a  man's  head  and 
you  make  him  an  infidel.  Educate  only  a  man's  heart  and 
you  make  him  a  fanatic.  Educate  them  both  together,  and 
you  have  the  noblest  work  of  God.  An  educated  mind  with- 
out moral  principle  is  a  ship  without  a  helm,  a  rushing  rail 
train  without  brakes  or  reversing  rod  to  control  the  speed. 
Put  the  Bible  in  the  family.  There  it  lies  on  the  table,  an 
unlimited  power.  Polygamy  and  unscriptural  divorce  are 
prohibited.  Parents  are  kind  and  faithful,  children  polite 
and  obedient.  Domestic  sorrows  lessened  by  being  divided, 
joys  increased  by  being  multiplied.  Oh,  father,  Oh,  mother, 
take  down  that  long-neglected  Bible,  and  read  it  yourselves 
and  let  your  children  read  it ! 

It  maybe  an  old-fashioned  gift,  but  when  your  daughter 
takes  the  hand  of  another  and  goes  forth  to  her  new  home, 
better  than  the  ring  of  betrothal   on   lur  hand,  better  than 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  1 23 

the  orange  blossoms  in  her  hair,  better  than  the  wedding 
march  to  which  they  keep  step  as  they  start  on  the  journey 
of  Hfe,  will  be  a  well-bound  copy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  her 
name  on  the  fly-leaf  with  the  inscription  :  "  From  father  and 
mother  on  the  marriage  day."  I  say  let  it  be  well  bound,  for 
how  many  years  of  joy  and  sorrow  and  vicissitude  it  will 
have  to  serve  !     Let  it  be  well  bound. 

Put  the  Bible  on  the  rail  train  and  on  ship-board,  till  all 
parts  of  this  land  and  all  other  lands,  shall  have  its  illumina- 
tion. This  hour  there  rises  the  yell  of  heathen  worship, 
and  in  the  face  of  this  day's  sun  smokes  the  blood  of  human 
sacrifice.  Give  them  the  Bible.  Unbind  that  wife  from 
the  funeral  pyre,  for  no  other  sacrifice  is  needed  since  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from  all  sin. 


THE   STOLEN   GRINDSTONES. 

"  Now  there  was  no  smith  found  throughout  all  the  land  of  Israel : 
for  the  Philistines  said,  Lest  the  Hebrews  make  them  swords  or  spears. 
But  all  the  Israelites  went  down  to  the  Philistines,  to  sharpen  every 
man  his  share,  and  his  coulter,  and  his  axe,  and  his  mattock.  Yet  thev 
had  a  file  for  the  mattock,  and  for  the  coulters,  and  for  the  forks,  and 
for  the  axes,  and  to  sharpen  the  goads." — I.  Samuel,  13  :  19-21. 

What  a  galling  subjugation  for  the  Israelites  !  The  Phil- 
istines had  carried  off  all  the  blacksmiths,  and  torn  down  all 
the  blacksmiths'  shops,  and  abolished  the  blacksmiths'  trade 
in  the  land  of  Israel.  The  Philistines  would  not  even  allow 
these  parties  to  work  their  valuable  mines  of  brass  and  iron, 
nor  might  they  make  any  swords  or  spears.  There  were  only 
two  swords  left  in  all  the  land.  Yea,  these  Philistines  went  on 
until  they  had  taken  all  the  grindstones  from  the  land  of 
Israel,  so  that  if  an  Israelitish  farmer  wanted  to  sharpen  his 
plough  or  his  axe,  he  had  to  go  over  to  the  garrison  of  the 
Philistines  to  get  it  done.  There  was  only  one  sharpening 
instrument  left  in  the  land,  and  that  was  a  file  ;  the  farmers 
and  the  mechanics  having  nothing  to  whet  up  the  coulter, 
and  the  goad,  and  the  pick-axe,  save  a  simple  file. 

Industry  was  hindered  and  work    practically  disgraced. 


124  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

The  great  idea  of  these  Phihstineswas  to  keep  the  Israeh'tes 
disarmed.  They  might  get  iron  out  of  the  hills  to  make 
swords  of,  but  they  would  not  have  any  blacksmiths  to  weld 
this  iron.  If  they  got  the  iron  welded,  they  would  have  no 
grindstones  on  which  to  bring  the  instruments  of  agriculture 
or  the  military  weapons  up  to  an  edge.  Oh,  you  poor,  weapon- 
less Israelites,  reduced  to  a  file,  how  I  pity  you  !  But  these 
Philistines  were  not  for  ever  to  keep  their  heel  on  the  neck 
of  God's  children.  Jonathan,  on  his  hands  and  knees,  climbs 
up  a  great  rock,  beyond  which  were  the  Philistines  ;  and  his 
armor-bearer,  on  his  hands  and  knees,  climbs  up  the  same 
rock,  and  these  two  men,  with  their  two  swords,  hew  to 
pieces  the  Philistines,  the  Lord  throwing  a  great  terror  upon 
them.  So  it  w^as  then  ;  so  it  is  now.  Tw^o  men  of  God  on 
their  knees,  mightier  than  a  Philistine  host  on  their  feet ! 

I  learn  from  this  subject,that  it  is  dangerous  for  the  Church 
of  God  to  allow  its  weapons  to  stay  in  the  hands  of  its  enemies. 
These  Israelites  might  again  and  again  have  obtained  a  supply 
of  swords  and  weapons,  as  for  instance,  when  they  took  the 
spoils  of  the  Ammonites  ;  but  these  Israelites  seemed  content 
to  have  no  swords,  no  spears,  no  blacksmiths,  no  grindstones, 
no  active  iron  mines,  until  it  was  too  late  for  them  to  make 
any  resistance.  I  see  the  farmers  tugging  along  with  their 
pickaxes  and  plough,  and  I  say,  "  Where  are  you  going  with 
those  things?"  They  say,  "Oh,  we  are  going  over  to  the 
garrison  of  the  Philistines,  to  get  these  things  sharpened."  I 
say,  "  You  foolish  men,  why  don't  you  sharpen  them  at 
home?"  "Oh."  they  say,  "the  blacksmiths'  shops  are  all 
torn  down,  and  wc  have  nothing  left  us  but  a  file." 

APPEAL  TO   CHRISTIANS. 

So  it  is  in  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ  to-day.  We  are  too 
willing  to  give  up  our  weapons  to  the  enemy. 

Let  us  thus  take  advantage  of  the  world's  grindstones. 

These  Israelites  were  reduced  to  a  file,  and  so  they  went 
over  to  the  garrison  of  the  Philistines  to  get  their  axes,  and 
their  goads,  and  their  jiloughs  sharpened.     The  Bible  dis- 


INGERSOLIJAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  125 

tinctly  states  it — the  text  which  I  read  at  the  beginning  of 
the  service — that  they  had  no  other  instruments  now  with 
which  to  do  this  work,  and  the  Israehtes  did  right  when  they 
went  over  to  the  Phihstines  to  use  their  grindstones.  My 
friends,  is  it  not  right  for  us  to  employ  the  world's  grind- 
stones,? If  there  be  art,  if  there  be  logic,  if  there  be  business 
faculty  on  the  other  side,  let  us  go  over  and  employ  it,  for 
Christ's  sake.  The  fact  is,  we  fight  with  too  dull  weapons, 
and  we  work  with  too  dull  implements.  We  hack  and  we 
maul,  when  we  ought  to  make  a  clean  stroke.  Let  us  go  over 
among  sharp  business  men  and  among  sharp  literary  men,  and, 
find  out  what  their  tact  is,  and  then  transfer  it  to  the  cause 
of  Christ.  If  they  have  science  and  art,  it  will  do  us  good  to 
rub  against  it. 

In  other  words,  let  us  employ  the  world's  grindstones. 
We  will  listen  to  their  music,  and  we  will  watch  their  acumen, 
and  we  will  use  their  grindstones,  and  will  borrow  their  philo- 
sophical apparatus  to  make  our  experiments,  and  we  will  bor- 
row their  printing-presses  to  publish  our  Bibles,  and  we  will 
borrow  their  rail-trains  to  carry  our  Christian  literature,  and 
we  will  borrow  their  ships  to  transport  our  missionaries.  That 
was  what  made  Paul  such  a  master  in  his  day.  He  not  only 
got  all  the  learning  he  could  get  of  Doctor  Gamaliel,  but 
afterward,  standing  on  Mars  Hill,  and  in  crowded  thorough- 
fare, quoted  their  poetry,  and  grasped  their  logic,  and  wielded 
their  eloquence,  and  employed  their  mythology,  until  Dio- 
nysius  the  Areopagite,  learned  in  the  schools  of  Athens  and 
Heliopolis,  went  down  under  his  tremendous  powers. 

That  was  what  gave  Thomas  Chalmers  his  power  in  his 
day.  He  conquered  the  world's  astronomy  and  compelled  it 
to  ring  out  the  wisdom  and  greatness  of  the  Lord,  until,  for 
the  second  time,  the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  all  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy.  That  was  what  gave  \.o  Jojia- 
than  Edwards  his  influence  in  his  day.  He  conquered  the 
world's  metaphysics  and  forced  it  into  the  service  of  God, 
until  not  only  the  old  meeting-house  at  Northampton,  Mas- 
sachusetts, but  all  Christendom,  felt  thrilled  by  his  Christian 
power.     Well,  now,  my  friends,  we  all  have  tools  of  Christian 


126  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

power.  Do  not  let  them  lose  their  edges.  We  want  no  rusty 
blades  in  this  fight.  We  want  no  coulter  that  cannot  rip  up 
the  glebe.  We  want  no  axe  that  cannot  fell  the  trees.  We 
want  no  goad  that  cannot  start  the  lazy  team.  Let  us  get 
the  very  best  grindstones  we  can  find,  though  they  be  in  pos- 
session of  the  Philistines,  compelling  them  to  turn  the  crank 
while  we  bear  down  with  all  our  might  on  the  swift  revolv- 
ing wheel,  until  all  our  energies  and  faculties  shall  be  brought 
up  to  a  bright,  keen,  sharp,  glittering  edge. 

LOGIC  OF  TESTIMONY. 

Our  weapon  in  this  conflict  is  faith,  not  logic ;  faith,  not 
metaphysics ;  faith,  not  profundity ;  faith,  not  scholastic  ex- 
ploration. But  then,  in  order  to  have  faith,  we  must  have 
testimony ;  and  if  five  hundred  men,  or  one  thousand  men, 
or  five  hundred  thousand  men,  or  five  million  men  get  up  and 
tell  me  that  they  have  felt  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  a  joy, 
a  comfort,  a  help,  an  inspiration,  I  am  bound  as  a  fair- 
minded  man  to  accept  their  testimony. 

The  world  boasts  that  it  has  gobbled  up  the  schools,  and 
the  colleges,  and  the  arts,  and  the  sciences,  and  the  litera- 
ture, and  the  printing-press.  Infidelity  is  making  a  mighty 
attempt  to  get  all  our  weapons  in  its  hand,  and  then  to  keep 
them.  You  know  it  is  making  this  boast  all  the  time,  and 
after  a  while,  when  the  great  battle  between  Sin  and  Right- 
eousness has  opened,  if  we  do  not  look  out  wc  will  be  as 
badly  ofT  as  these  Israelites,  without  any  swords  to  fight  with 
and  without  any  sharpening  instruments.  I  call  upon  the 
superintendents  of  literary  institutions  to  see  to  it  that  the 
men  who  go  into  the  class-rooms  to  stand  beside  the  Le}dcn 
jars  and  the  electric  batteries,  and  the  microscopes  and  tele- 
scopes, be  children  of  God,  not  Philistines. 

The  Carlylean,  Emersonian  and  Tyndallean  thinkers  of 
this  day  are  trying  to  get  all  the  intellectual  weapons  in 
their  own  grasp.  We  want  scientific  Christians  to  capture 
the  science,  and  scholastic  Christians  to  capture  the  scholar- 
ship, and  philosophic  Christians  to  capture  the  philosophy. 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  3  2^ 

and  lecturing  Christians  to  take  back  the  lecturing  plat- 
form. We  want  to  send  out  against  Schenkel  and  Strauss 
and  Renan,  a  Theodore  Christlieb,  of  Bonn,  and  against  the 
infidel  scientists  of  the  day,  a  God-worshipping  Silliman  and 
Hitchcock  and  Agassiz.  We  want  to  capture  all  the  philo- 
sophical apparatus,  and  swing  around  the  telescopes  on  the 
swivel,  until  through  them  we  can  see  the  morning-star  of 
the  Redeemer,  and  with  mineralogical  hammer  discover  the 
Rock  of  Ages,  and  amid  the  flora  of  all  realms  find  the  Rose 
of  Sharon  and  the  Lily  of  the  Valley. 

We  want  a  clergy  learned  enough  to  discourse  of  the 
human  eye,  showing  it  to  be  a  microscope  and  telescope  in 
one  instrument,  with  eight  wonderful  contrivances,  and  lids 
closing  thirty  thousand  or  forty  thousand  times  a  day ;  all 
its  muscles  and  nerves  and  bones  showing  the  infinite  skill  of 
an  infinite  God,  and  then  winding  up  with  the  peroration, 
"  He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?"  And  then  we 
want  to  discourse  about  the  human  ear,  its  wonderful  integu- 
ments, membranes  and  vibration,  and  closing  with  the  ques- 
tion, "  He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  He  not  hear  ?"  And 
we  want  some  one  able  to  expound  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  bring  to  it  the  geology  and  the  astronomy  of  the 
world,  until,  as  Job  suggested,  "  The  stones  of  the  field  shall 
be  in  league"  with  the  truth,  and  the  stars  in  their  course 
shall  fight  against  Sisera.  Oh,  Church  of  God,  go  out  and  re- 
capture these  weapons ! 

Let  men  of  God  go  out  and  take  possession  of  the  plat- 
form. Let  any  printing-presses  that  have  been  captured  by 
the  enemy  be  recaptured  for  God  ;  and  the  reporters,  and 
the  type-setters,  and  the  editors,  and  the  publishers  swear 
allegiance  to  the  Lord  God  of  truth!  Ah!  my  friend,  that 
day  must  come,  and  if  the  great  body  of  Christian  men  have 
not  the  faith,  or  the  courage,  or  the  consecration  to  do  it, 
then  let  some  Jonathan  on  his  busy  hands  and  on  his  praying 
knees,  climb  upon  the  Rock  of  Hindrance,  and  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  God  of  Israel  slash  to  pieces  those  literary  Philis- 
tines. If  these  men  will  not  be  converted  to  God,  then  they 
must  be  overthrown. 


128  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


APPEAL  TO    Y^OUNG   MEN. 


Young  man,  do  not  be  ashamed  to  be  a  friend  of  the 
Bible.  Do  not  put  your  thumb  in  your  vest,  as  young  men 
sometimes  do,  and  swagger  about,  talking  of  the  glorious 
light  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  of  there  being  no  need 
of  a  Bible.  They  have  the  light  of  nature  in  India  and  China 
and  in  all  the  dark  places  of  the  earth.  Did  you  ever  hear 
that  the  light  of  nature  gave  them  comfort  for  their  trouble? 
They  have  lancets  to  cut  and  juggernauts  to  crush,  but  no 
comfort.     Ah  !  my  friends,  you  better  stop  your  scepticism. 

It  is  an  absorbing  question,  a  practical  question,  an  over- 
whelming question  to  you  and  to  me,  the  authorship  of  this 
Holy  Bible — whether  the  Lord  God  of  Heaven  and  earth, 
or  a  pack  of  dupes,  scoundrels,  and  impostors.  We  cannot 
afford  to  adjourn  that  question  a  week  or  a  day  or  an  hour 
any  more  than  a  sea  captain  can  afford  to  say,  "  Well,  this  is 
a  very  dark  night.  I  have  really  lost  my  bearings  ;  there's 
a  light  out  there,  I  don't  know  whether  it's  a  lighthouse,  or 
a  false  light  on  the  shore,  I  don't  know  what  it  is  ;  but  I'll 
just  go  to  sleep  and  in  the  morning  I'll  find  out."  In  the 
morning  the  vessel  might  be  on  the  rocks,  and  the  beach 
strewn  \\\\.\\  the  white  faces  of  the  dead  crew.  The  time  for 
that  sea  captain  to  find  out  about  the  lighthouse  is  before  he 
goes  to  sleep. 

It  is  demonstrated  to  all  honest  men  that  it  is  not  so 
certain  that  William  Cullen  Bryant  wrote  "  Thanatopsis," 
or  Longfellow  wrote  "  Hiawatha,"  as  that  God,  by  the  hand 
of  prophet  and  apostle,  wrote  the  Bible. 

Science,  law,  medicine,  literature  and  merchandise, 
are  gradually  coming  to  believe  in  Christianity,  and  soon 
there  will  be  no  people  who  disbelieve  in  it,  except  those 
conspicuous  for  lack  of  brain,  or  men  with  two  families,  who 
do  not  like  the  Bible,  because  it  rebukes  their  swinish  pro- 
pensities. 

The  time  is  hastening  when  there  will  be  no  infidels  left 
except  libertines,  harlots,  and  murderers. 


INGERSOLLIAN  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  1 29 

From  the  ruins  of  Babylon  and  Assyria  and  Nineveh, 
and  the  valleys  of  the  Nile,  confirmations  have  been  exhumed 
proving  to  all  fair-minded  men  that  the  Bible  is  the  truest 
book  ever  written.  The  mythologies  of  Egypt  were  found 
to  have  embodied  in  them  the  knowledge  of  man's  expulsion 
from  Paradise,  and  the  sacrifice  of  a  great  emancipator. 
Moses'  account  of  the  creation,  corroborated  by  the  hammer 
of  Christian  geologists;  the  oldest  profane  writers  like  Hiro- 
mus,  Helanicus,  and  Berosus,  confirming  the  Bible  account 
of  ancient  longevity ;  Tacitus  and  Pliny  confirming  the 
Bible  accounts  of  destroyed  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  ;  Tacitus 
and  Porphyry  telling  the  same  story  of  Christ  as  Matthew 
and  Luke  told  ;  Macrobius  telling  of  the  massacre  of  chil- 
dren in  Bethlehem,  and  Phlegon  sketching  at  the  crucifixion. 

The  Bible  intimates  that  there  was  a  city  called  Petra, 
built  out  of  solid  rock.  Infidelity  scoffed  at  it.  "  Where  is 
your  city  of  Petra?"  Burckhardt  and  Laborde  went  forth  in 
their  explorations  and  they  came  upon  that  very  city.  The 
mountains  stand  around  like  giants  guarding  the  tomb  where 
the  city  is  buried.  They  find  a  street  in  that  city  six  miles 
long,  where  once  flashed  imperial  pomp  and  which  echoed 
with  the  laughter  of  light-hearted  mirth  on  its  way  to  the 
theatre.  On  temples  fashioned  out  of  colored  stones — some 
of  which  have  blushed  into  the  crimson  of  the  rose,  and  some 
of  which  have  paled  into  the  whiteness  of  the  lily — aye,  on 
column  and  pediment  and  entablature  and  statuary,  God 
writes  the  truth  of  that  Bible. 

The  Bible  says  that  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  were  destroyed 
by  fire  and  brimstone.  "Absurd,"  infidels  year  after  year 
said  "  it  is  positively  absurd  that  they  could  have  been  de- 
stroyed by  brimstone.  There  is  nothing  in  the  elements  to 
cause  such  a  shower  of  death  as  that."  Lieutenant  Lynch 
went  out  in  exploration  and  came  to  the  Dead  Sea,  which, 
by  a  convulsion  of  nature,  has  overflowed  the  place  where 
the  cities  once  stood.  He  sank  his  fathoming  line  and 
brought  up  from  the  bottom  of  the  Dead  Sea  great  masses 
of  sulphur,  remnants  of  that  very  tempest  that  swept  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  to  ruin.     Who    was   right  ?     The  Bible  that 


130  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

announced  the  destruction  of  those  cities  or  the  sceptics 
who  for  ages  scoffed  at  it  ? 

The  Bible  says  there  was  a  city  called  Nineveh,  and  that 
it  was  three  days'  journey  around  it,  and  that  it  should  be 
destroyed  by  fire  and  water.  "Absurd,"  cried  out  hundreds 
of  voices  for  many  years  ;  "  no  such  city  was  ever  built  that 
it  would  take  three  days'  journey  to  go  around.  Besides,  it 
could  not  be  destroyed  by  fire  and  water ;  they  are  antago- 
nistic elements."  But  Layard,  Botta,  and  Keith  go  out,  and 
by  their  explorations  they  find  that  city  of  Nineveh,  and 
they  tell  us  that  by  their  own  experiment  it  is  three  days' 
journey  around,  according  to  the  old  estimate  of  a  day's 
journe}',  and  that  it  was  literally  destro)'ed  by  fire  and  water 
— two  antagonistic  elements — a  part  of  the  city  having  been 
inundated  by  the  River  Tigris,  the  brick  material  in  those 
times  being  dried  clay  instead  of  burned,  while  in  other  parts 
they  find  the  remains  of  the  fire  in  heaps  of  charcoal  that 
have  been  excavated,  and  in  the  calcined  slabs  of  gypsum. 
Who  was  right   the  Bible  or  infidelity  ? 

Moses  intimated  that  they  had  vineyards  in  Egypt. 
"Absurd,"  cried  hundreds  of  voices;  "you  can't  raise  grapes 
in  Egypt ;  or,  if  you  can,  it  is  a  very  great  exception  that 
you  can  raise  them."  But  the  traveller  goes  down,  and  in 
the  underground  vaults  of  Eilithya  he  finds  painted  on  the 
wall  all  the  process  of  tending  the  vines  and  treading  out  the 
grapes.  It  is  all  there,  familiarly  sketched  by  people  who 
evidently  knew  all  about  it,  and  saw  it  all  about  them  every 
day ;  and  in  those  underground  vaults  there  are  vases  still 
encrusted  with  the  settlings  of  the  wine.  You  sec  the  vine 
did  grow  in  Egypt,  whether  it  grows  there  now  or  not. 

Can  you  doubt  the  authenticity  of  the  Scriptures  ?  There 
is  not  so  much  evidence  that  Walter  Scott  wrote  "The  Lady 
of  the  Lake  ;"  not  so  much  evidence  that  Shakespeare  wrote 
"  Hamlet ;"  not  so  much  evidence  that  John  Milton  wrote 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  as  there  is  evidence  that  the  Lord  God 
Almighty,  by  the  hands  of  the  prophets,  evangelists  and 
apostles,  wrote  this  Book. 

Suppose  a  book  now  to  be  written  which  came  in  conflict 


TNGEKSOl.LIAX  LYFIDELITY  CONFUTED  I31 

with  a  great  many  things,  and  was  written  by  bad  men  or 
impostors,  how  long  would  such  a  book  stand  ?  It  would  be 
scouted  by  everybody.  And  I  say  if  that  Bible  had  been  an 
imposition  ;  or  if  it  had  not  been  written  by  the  men  who 
said  they  wrote  it ;  if  it  had  been  a  mere  collection  of  false- 
hoods, do  you  not  suppose  that  it  would  have  been  imme- 
diately rejected  by  the  people?  If  Job  and  Isaiah  and 
Jeremiah  and  Paul  and  Peter  and  John  were  impostors,  they 
would  have  been  scouted  by  generations  and  nations.  If 
that  Book  has  come  down  through  fires  of  centuries  without 
a  scar,  it  is  because  there  is  nothing  in  it  destructible. 

How  near  have  they  come  to  destroying  the  Bible? 
When  they  began  their  opposition  there  were  two  or  three 
thousand  copies  of  it.  Now  there  are  two  hundred  millions, 
as  far  as  I  can  calculate.  These  Bible  truths,  notwithstanding 
all  the  opposition,  have  gone  into  all  languages — into  the  philo- 
sophic Greek,  the  flowing  Italian,  the  rugged  German,  the 
passionate  French,  the  picturesque  Indian,  and  the  exhaust- 
less  Anglo-Saxon.  Now,  do  you  not  suppose,  if  that  Book 
had  been  an  imposition  and  a  falsehood,  it  would  have  gone 
down- under  these  ceaseless  fires  of  opposition? 

While  God  wrote  the  Bible,  at  the  same  time  He  wrote 
this  commentary,  that  "the  statutes  of  the  Lord  are  right," 
on  leaves  of  rock  and  shell,  bound  in  clasps  of  metal,  and 
lying  on  mountain  tables  and  in  the  jewelled  vase  of  the  sea. 
In  authenticity  and  in  genuineness  the  statutes  of  the  Lord 
are  right. 


CAVILLING   REBUKED. 

How  foolish  in  the  caviller  to  allow  the  technicalities  of  re- 
ligion to  stop  his  salvation  !  I  know  wise  men  and  great  men, 
competent  for  all  other  stations,  who  are  acting  a  silly  and 
foolish  part  in  regard  to  the  technicalities  of  religion.  They 
ask  us  some  questions  which  we  cannot  answer  categorically, 
and  so  they  burst  into  a  broad  guffaw,  as  though  it  is  of  any 
more  interest  to  us  than  it  ought  to  be  to  them.  About  the 
Atonement,  about  God's  decrees,  about  man's  destiny,  they 


133  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ask  a  great  many  questions  which  we  cannot  answer,  and  so 
they  deride  us,  as  though  we  could  not  ask  thcin  a  thousand 
questions  that  they  cannot  answer,  about  their  eyes,  about 
their  ears,  about  their  finger-nails,  about  everything.  A  fool 
can  ask  a  question  that  a  wise  man  cannot  answer.  O  you 
cavilling  men!  O  you  profound  men!  O  you  learned 
men,  do  please  admit  something.  You  have  a  soul  ?  Yes. 
Will  it  live  forever ?,  Yes.  Where?  You  say  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  not  a  divine  Saviour.  Who  is  He.-*  Where  will  you 
go  after  you  leave  your  law-books  and  your  medical  prescrip- 
tions and  your  club-room  and  your  newspaper-office — where 
will  you  go  to?  Your  body  will  be  six  feet  under  ground. 
Where  will  your  soul  be?  The  black  coat  will  be  ofT,  the 
shroud  on.  Those  spectacles  will  be  removed  from  your 
vision,  for  the  sod  will  press  your  eyelids.  Have  you  any 
idea  that  an  earthly  almanac  describes  the  years  of  your  life- 
time ?  Of  what  stuff  shall  I  gather  the  material  for  the  let- 
ters of  that  word  which  describes  your  eternal  home?  Shall 
it  be  iron  chain  or  amaranthine  garland?  The  air  that  stirs 
the  besweatcd  locks  of  your  dying  pillow,  will  it  come  off  a 
garden  or  a  desert?  Oh,  quit  the  puzzling  questions  and  try 
these  momentous  questions.  Quit  the  small  questions  and 
try  these  great  questions.  Instead  of  discussing  whether  the 
serpent  in  Eden  was  figurative  or  literal,  whether  the  Medi- 
terranean fish  did  or  did  not  swallow  the  recreant  prophet, 
whether  this  and  that,  and  the  other  thing  is  right  or  wrong, 
come  and  discuss  one  question :  "  How  shall  I  get  rid  of  my 
sins  and  win  heaven  ?"  That  is  the  question  for  you.  Yea,  there 
have  been  men  who  have  actually  lost  their  souls  because 
they  thought  there  was  a  discrepancy  between  Moses  and. Pro- 
fessor Silliman — because  they  could  not  understand  how 
there  could  be  light  before  the  sun  rose — the  light  appear- 
ing in  verse  3  of  Genesis,  and  the  sun  appearing  not  until 
verse  16 — and  because  the}'  do  not  know  liow  the  sun  could 
stand  still  without  upsetting  the  uni\'ersc,  and  because  they 
had  decided  upon  the  theor}'  of  natuial  selection.  A  Ger^ 
luaii  pitilosophcr  in  dying  had  for  his  chief  sorrow  that  he  had 
not  devoteti   his  whole   life  to  the  stuch'  of  the  dati\-e  case. 


INGERSOLLTAM  INFIDELITY  CONFUTED.  133 

O,  when  your  immortality  is  in  peril,  why  quibble  ?  Quit 
these  non-essentials,  my  dear  brother.  In  the  name  of  God, 
I  ask  you  in  regard  to  these  matters  of  the  immortal  soul, 
that  you  do  not  play  the  fool. 

What  is  that  man  doing  over  in  Bowling  Green,  New 
York?  Well,  he  is  going  in  for  a  ticket  for  a  transatlantic 
voyage.  He  is  quarrelling  with  the  clerk  about  the  spots — 
the  red  spots  on  the  ticket — and  he  is  quarrelling  about  the 
peculiar  signature  of  the  president  of  the  steamship  company, 
and  he  is  quarrelling  about  the  manner  of  the  clerk  who 
hands  him  the  ticket.  How  long  has  he  been  standing  there  ? 
Three  weeks.  Meanwhile,  perhaps,  twenty  steamers  have 
gone  out  of  port,  and  I  hear  the  shriek  of  the  steam-tug  that 
could  take  him  to  the  last  vessel  that  could  bear  him  to  his 
engagement  in  London.  Still  he  stands  in  Bowling  Green 
discussing  the  ticket.  What  do  you  say  in  regard  to  that 
man  ?  You  say  he  is  a  fool.  Well,  in  that  very  way  are 
many  men  acting  in  regard  to  the  matters  of  the  soul.  They 
are  cavilling  about  the  Atonement,  the  red  spots  on  the 
ticket — about  the  character  of  the  minister  who  hands  them 
the  ticket — about  whether  it  has  a  divine  or  human  signa- 
ture, and  meanwhile,  all  their  opportunities  for  heaven  are 
sailing  out  of  the  harbor,  and  I  hear  the  last  tap  of  the  bell 
announcing  their  last  chance  for  heaven.  Go  aboard !  Do 
not  waste  any  more  time  in  higgling  and  carping  and  criti- 
cising and  wondering,  and,  in  the  presence  of  an  astounded 
heaven,  playing  the  fool. 

The  religion  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  is  the  philosophy 
of  icicles  ;  the  religion  of  Theodore  Parker  is  a  sirocco  of  the 
desert,  covering  up  the  soul  with  dry  sand ;  the  religion  of 
Renan  is  the  romance  of  believing  nothing ;  the  religion  of 
Thomas  Carlyle  is  only  a  condensed  London  fog;  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Huxleys  and  the  Spencers  is  merely  a  pedestal 
on  which  human  philosophy  sits  shivering  in  the  night  of  the 
soul,  looking  up  to  the  stars,  offering  no  help  to  the  nations 
that  crouch  and  groan  at  the  base.  Tell  me  where  there  is 
one  man  who  has  rejected  that  Gospel  for  another,  who  is 
thoroughly  satisfied  and  helped  and  contented  in  his  skep- 


134  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ticism,  aiul  I  will  take  the  car  to-morrow  and  ride  five  hun- 
dred miles  to  see  him. 

For  many  things  I  have  admired  Percy  Shelley,  the  great 
English  poet,  but  I  deplore  the  fact  that  it  was  a  great  sweet- 
ness to  him  to  dishonor  God.  The  poem  "  Queen  Mab" 
has  in  it  the  maligning  of  the  Deity.  The  infidel  poet  was 
impious  enough  to  ask  for  Rowland  Hill's  Surrey  Chapel 
that  he  might  denounce  the  Christian  religion.  He  was  in 
great  glee  against  God  and  the  truth,  l^ut  he  visited  Italy, 
and  one  day  on  the  Mediterranean  with  two  friends  in  a 
boat,  he  Avas  coming  toward  shore  when  a  squall  struck  the 
water.  A  gentleman  standing  on  shore,  through  a  glass  saw 
many  boats  tossed  in  this  squall,  but  all  outrode  the  terror 
except  one,  that  in  which  Shelley,  the  infidel  poet,  and  his 
two  friends  were  sailing.  That  never  came  ashore,  but  the 
bodies  of  two  of  the  occupants  were  washed  upon  the  beach, 
one  of  them  the  poet.  A  funeral  pyre  was  built  on  the  sea- 
shore by  some  classic  friends,  and  the  two  bodies  were  con- 
sumed. Poor  Shelley!  He  would  have  no  God  while  he 
lived,  and  he  probably  had  no  God  when  he  died.  "  The 
Lord  knoweth  the  way  of  the  righteous,  but  the  way  of  the 
ungodly  shall  perish." 

You  may  get  all  your  difficulties  settled  as  Garibaldi,  the 
magnetic  Italian,  got  his  gardens  made.  When  the  war  be- 
tween Austria  and  Sardinia  broke  out  he  was  living  at  Caprera, 
a  very  rough  and  uncultured  island  home.  But  he  went  forth 
with  his  sword  to  achieve  the  liberation  of  Naples  and  Sicil}', 
and  gave  nine  million  people  free  government  under  Victor 
Emanuel.  Garibaldi,  after  being  absent  two  years  from  Ca- 
prera, returned,  and,  when  he  approached  it,  he  found  that 
his  home  had  been  Edenized  by  Victor  Emanuel  as  a  surprise. 
Trimmed  shrubbery  had  taken  the  place  of  thorny  thickets, 
gardens  the  place  of  barrenness,  and  the  old  rookery  in  which 
he  once  livetl  had  given  way  to  a  pictured  mansion  where  he 
lived  in  comfort  the  rest  of  his  days.  And  I  tell  you  if  you  will 
come  and  enlist  under  the  banner  of  our  Victor  Emanuel,  and 
follow  Him  through  thick  and  thin,  and  fight  His  battles,  and 
eridurc  His  sacrifices,  }-ou  will  find  after  a  while  that  I  fe  has 


INGERSOLLTAN  INFTDELTTY  CONFUTED.  135 

changed  your  heart  from  a  jungle  of  thorny  scepticisms  into 
a  garden  all  abloom  with  luxuriant  joy  that  you  have  never 
dreamed  of.  From  a  tangled  Caprera  of  sadness  into  a  Para- 
dise of  God!  Make  it  your  guide  in  life  and  your  pillow  in 
death. 

After  the  battle  of  Richmond  a  dead  soldier  was  found 
with  his  hand  l)'ing  on  the  open  Bible.  Tiie  summer  in- 
sects had  eaten  the  flesh  from  the  hand,  but  the  skeleton 
finger  lay  on  these  words:  "  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  Will  fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art 
with  me  ;  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff  they  comfort  me."  Yes, 
this  Book  will  become  in  your  last  days,  when  you  turn  away 
from  all  other  books,  a  solace  for  your  soul.  Perhaps  it  was 
your  mother's  Bible  ;  perhaps  the  one  given  you  on  your 
wedding-day,  its  cover  now  worn  out  and  its  leaf  faded  with 
age ;  but  its  bright  promises  will  flash  upon  the  opening 
gates  of  heaven. 

"  How  precious  is  the  Book  divine, 
By  inspiration  given  ; 
Bright  as  a  lamp  its  doctrines  shine, 
To  guide  our  souls  to  heaven. 

"  This  lamp,  through  all  the  tedious  night 
Of  life,  shall  guide  our  way, 
Till  we  behold  the  clearer  light 
Of  an  eternal  day." 


138  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

planks  and  pry  out  some  of  the  timbers  because  the  timber 
did  not  come  from  the  right  forest !  It  does  not  seem  tome 
a  commendable  business  for  the  crew  to  be  helping  the  winds 
and  storms  outside  with  their  axes  and  saws  inside. 

Now,  this  old  Gospel  ship,  what  with  the  roaring  of  earth  and 
hell  around  the  stem  and  stern  and  mutiny  on  deck,  is  having 
a  very  rough  voyage,  but  I  have  noticed  that  not  one  of  the 
timbers  has  started, and  the  Captain  says  He  zvill see  it  through. 
And  I  have  noticed  that  keelson  and  counter-timber  knee 
are  built  out  of  Lebanon  cedar,  and  she  is  going  to  Aveather 
the  gale,  but  no  credit  to  those  who  make  mutiny  on  deck. 

When  I  see  ministers  of  religion  finding  fault  with  the 
Scriptures,  it  makes  me  think  of  a  fortress  terrifically  bom- 
barded, and  the  men  on  the  ramparts,  instead  of  swabbing 
out  and  loading  the  guns  and  helping  to  fetch  up  the  ammu- 
nition from  the  magazine,  are  trying  with  crowbars  to  pry 
out  from  the  wall  certain  blocks  of  stone,  because  they  cjid 
not  come  from  the  right  quarry.  O,  men  on  the  ramparts, 
better  fight  back  and  fight  down  the  common  enemy,  instead 
of  trying  to  make  breaches  in  the  wall. 

WHY  EXPURGATION   IS  WRONG. 

While  I  oppose  this  expurgation  of  the  Scriptures,  I  shall 
give  you  my  reasons  for  such  opposition.  "  What  !"  say  some 
of  the  theological  evolutionists,  whose  brains  have  been 
addled  by  too  long  brooding  over  them  by  Darwin  and  Spen- 
cer, "  you  don't  now  really  believe  all  the  story  of  ^the  Gar- 
den of  Eden,  do  you  ?"  Yes,  as  much  as  I  believe  all  the 
roses  that  were  in  my  garden  last  summer.  "  But,"  say  they, 
"  you  don't  really  believe  that  the  sun  and  moon  stood  still  ?" 
Yes,  and  if  I  had  strength  enough  to  create  a  sun  and  moon 
I  could  make  them  stand  still,  or  cause  the  refraction  of  the 
sun's  rays  so  it  would  ajjpear  to  stand  still.  "  But,"  they  say, 
"you  don't  really  believe  that  the  whale  swallowed  Jonah  ?" 
Yes,  and  if  I  were  strong  enough  to  make  a  whale  I  could 
have  made  very  easy  ingress  for  the  refractor)-  prophet,  leav- 
ing to  Evolution  to  eject  him,  if  he  were  an  unworthy  tenant ! 


THE   HIGHER    CRITICISM.  1 39 

"  But,"  say  they,  "  you  don't  really  believe  that  the  water  was 
turned  into  wine?"  Yes,  just  as  easily  as  water  now  is  often 
turned  into  wine  with  an  admixture  of  strychnine  and  log- 
wood !  "  But,"  say  they,  "  you  don't  really  believe  that 
Samson  slew  a  thousand  with  tJie  jazv-bone  of  an  ass  f  Yes, 
as  I  think  that  the  man  who  in  this  day  assaults  the  Bible  is 
wielding  the  same  weapon  ! 


EXPURGATION   OF   THE   HEART. 

I  tell  you  that  a  man  who  does  not  like  this  Book,  and 
who  is  critical  as  to  its  contents,  and  who  is  shocked  and 
outraged  with  its  descriptions,  has  never  been  soundly  con- 
verted. The  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  Presbytery,  or  Epis- 
copacy, does  not  always  change  a  man's  heart,  and  men 
sometimes  get  into  the  pulpit  as  well  as  into  the  pew,  never 
having  been  changed  radically  by  the  sovereign  grace  of 
God.  Get  your  heart  right  and  the  Bible  will  be  right.  The 
trouble  is  men's  natures  are  not  brought  into  harmony  with 
the  Word  of  God.  Ah!  xny  in^nds,  cxpn7-gation  of  the  heart 
is  ivhat  is  ivanted. 

You  cannot  make  me  believe  that  the  Scriptures,  which 
this  moment  lie  on  the  table  of  the  purest  and  the  best  men 
and  women  of  the  age,  and  which  were  the  dying  solace  of 
your  kindred  passed  into  the  skies,  have  in  them  a  taint 
which  the  strongest  microscope  of  honest  criticism  could 
make  visible.  If  men  are  uncontrollable  in  their  indignation 
when  the  integrity  of  wife  or  child  is  assailed,  and  judges 
and  jurors  as  far  as  possible  excuse  violence  under  such 
provocation,  what  ought  to  be  the  overwhelming  and  long 
resounding  thunders  of  condemnation  for  any  man  who  will 
stand  in  a  Christian  pulpit  and  assail  the  more  than  virgin 
purity  of  inspiration,  the  well-beloved  daughter  of  God  ? 

Expurgate  the  Bible  !  You  might  as  well  go  to  the  old' 
picture  galleries  in  Dresden  and  in  Veni,ce  and  in  Rome  and 
expurgate  the  old  paintings.  Perhaps  you  could  find  a  foot 
of  Michael  Angelo's  "Last  Judgment"  that  might  be 
improved.      Perhaps    you    could    throw    more     expression 


I40  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

into  Raphael's  "  Madonna."  Perhaps  you  could  put  more 
pathos  into  Rubens*  "  Descent  from  the  Cross."  Per- 
haps you  could  change  the  crests  of  the  waves  in  Tur- 
ner's "  Slave  Ship."  Perhaps  you  might  go  into  the  old  gal- 
leries of  sculpture  and  change  the  forms  and  the  posture  of 
the  statues  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles.  Such  an  iconoclast 
would  very  soon  find  himself  in  the  penitentiary.  But  it  is 
worse  vandalism  when  a  man  proposes  to  re-fashion  these 
masterpieces  of  inspiration  and  to  remodel  the  moral  giants 
of  this  gallery  of  God. 

NO   COMPROMISE. 

Now,  let  us  divide  off.  Let  those  people  who  do  not  be- 
lieve  the  Bible  and  who  are  critical  of  this  and  that  part  of 
it,  go  clear  over  to  the  other  side.  Let  them  stand  behind 
the  devil's  guns.  There  can  'oe  no  compromise  between  in- 
fidelity and  Christianity.  Give  us  the  out-and-out  opposi- 
tion of  infidelity  rather  than  the  work  of  these  hybrid  theo- 
logians, these  mongrel  ecclesiastics,  these  half-and-half  evo- 
luted  pulpiteers  who  believe  the  Bible  and  do  not  believe  it, 
who  accept  the  miracles  and  do  not  accept  them,  who  be- 
lieve in  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  and  do  not  believe 
in  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures — trimming  their  belief 
on  one  side  to  suit  the  scepticism  of  the  world,  trimming 
their  belief  on  the  other  side  to  suit  the  pride  of  their  own 
heart,  and  feeling  that  in  order  to  demonstrate  their  cour- 
age they  must  make  the  Bible  a  target  and  shoot  at  God. 

While  I  demand  that  the  antagonists  of  the  Bible  and 
the  critics  of  the  Bible  go  clear  over  where  they  belong,  on 
the  devil's  side,  I  ask  that  all  the  friends  of  this  good  Book 
come  out  openly  and  above  board  in  behalf  of  it.  That 
Book,  which  was  the  best  inheritance  you  ever  received  from 
your  ancestry,  and  which  will  be  the  best  Icgac}^  you  will 
leave  to  your  children  when  you  bid  them  good-by  as  you 
cross  the  ferry  to  the  golden  city. 

There  is  nothing  that  so  outrages  our  feelings  as  to  hear 
a  man  talk  airainst  this  Book.     It  has  been  to  us  so  much  in 


THE  HIGHER   CRITICISM.  I41 

the  past,  and  it  shall  be  to  u§  so  much  in  the  future,  that  you 
feel  like  doing  oftimes  as  I  saw  a  man  do  on  the  rail-train 
some  time  ago  when  I  was  on  the  way  to  New  Orleans.  He 
was  all  wrapped  up  with  the  Bible  that  he  took  out  of  his 
pocket.  After  reading  awhile,  not  knowing  he  was  especi- 
ally noticed,  he  closed  it  and  kissed  it,  and  put  it  in  his 
pocket.  I  was  not  surprised  at  it ;  for  there  are  thousands 
to-day  who  by  the  memory  of  all  this  Book  has  been  to  them 
in  the  past,  and  by  the  hope  and  expectation  of  all  it  is  to 
be  to  them  in  the  future,  could  press  it  to  their  soul  with  a 
kiss  of  undying  affection. 

Young  man,  do  not  be  ashamed  of  your  Bible.  There  is 
not  a  virtue  but  it  commends,  there  is  not  a  sorrow  but  it 
comforts,  there  is  not  a  good  law  on  the  statute-book  of  any 
country  but  it  is  founded  on  these  Ten  Commandments. 
There  are  no  braver,  grander  people  in  all  the  earth  than 
the  heroes  and  the  heroines  which  it  biographizes. 

BETTER   ILLUSTRATION   THAN   DORE'S. 

I  was  startled  as  I  saw  on  the  bulletin  the  announcement 
of  Gnstave  Dorc's  departure.  It  said :  "  Is  it  possible  that 
that  hand  has  forgotten  its  cunning?"  Of  all  the  works  of 
that  great  artist,  there  is  nothing  so  impressive  as  Dore's  il- 
lustrated Bible.  What  scene  of  Abrahamic  faith,  or  Edenic 
beauty,  of  dominion  Davidic  or  Solomonic,  of  miracle  or 
parable,  of  nativity,  or  of  crucifixion,  or  of  last  judgment, 
but  the  thought  leaped  from  the  great  brain  to  the  skilful 
pencil,  and  from  the  skilful  pencil  to  the  canvas  immortal. 
The  Louvre,  the  Luxembourg,  the  National  Gallery  of  Lon- 
don, compressed  within  two  volumes  of  Dore's  illustrated, 
Bible.  But  the  Bible  will  come  to  better  illustration  than 
that,  my  friends,  when  all  the  deserts  have  become  gardens, 
and  all  the  armories  have  become  academies,  and  all  the 
lakes  have  become  Genesarets  with  Christ  walking  them, 
and  all  the  cities  have  become  Jerusalems  with  hovering 
Shekinah;  and  the  two  hemispheres  shall  be  clapping 
cymbals  of  divine  praise,  and  the  round  earth  a  footlight  to 


142  TRCMrET  PEALS. 

Emanuel's  throne — that  to  all  lands,  all  ages,  all   centuries, 
and  all  cycles  will  be  the  best  specimen  of  Bible   illustrated. 

Ikit  though  thus  susceptible  of  fresh  illustration,  it  is  the 
same  old  Bible,  divinely  protected  in  its  present  shape.  You 
could  as  easily,  without  detection,  take  from  the  writings  of 
Shakespeare  Hajnlct,  and  insert  in  place  thereof  Alexan- 
der Smith's  drama,  as  at  anytime  during  the  last  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  a  man  could  have  made  any  important  change  in 
the  Bible  without  immediate  detection.  If  there  had  been 
an  element  of  weakness  or  of  deception,  or  of  disintegration 
the  Book  would  long  ago  have  fallen  to  pieces.  If  there  had 
been  one  loose  brick  or  cracked  casement  in  this  castellated 
truth,  surely  the  bombardment  of  eight  centuries  would  have 
discovered  and  broken  through  that  imperfection.  The  fact 
that  the  Bible  stands  intact,  notwithstanding  all  the  furious 
assaults  on  all  sides  upon  it,  is  proof  to  me  that  it  is  a  mira- 
cle, and  every  miracle  is  of  God. 

"  But,"  says  some  one,  "  while  we  admit  the  Bible  is  of 
God,  it  has  not  been  understood  until  our  time."  My  an- 
swer is,  that  if  the  Bible  be  a  letter  from  God,  our  Father, 
to  man,  His  child,  is  it  not  strange  that  that  letter  should 
have  been  written  in  such  a  way  that  it  should  allow  seventy 
generations  to  pass  away  and  be  buried  before  the  letter 
could  be  understood  ?  That  would  be  a  very  bright  father 
who  should  write  a  letter  for  the  guidance  and  intelligence  of 
his  children,  not  understandable  until  a  thousand  years  after 
they  were  buried  and  forgotten  !  While  as  the  years  roll  on 
other  beauties  and  excellencies  will  unfold  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, that  the  Bible  is  such  a  dead  failure  that  all  the  Chris- 
tian scholars  for  eighteen  hundred  years  were  deceived  in 
regard  to  vast  reaches  of  its  meaning,  is  a  demand  upon  my 
credulit)'  so  great  that  it  I  found  myself  at  all  disposed  to 
yield  to  it  I  should  to-morrow  morning  appl}'  at  Blooming- 
dale  Insane  As)-lum  as  unfit  to  go  alone. 


THE  HIGHER   CRITICISM.  1 43 


THEOLOGICAL  FOG. 

Thus  a  great  fog  has  come  down  upon  some  of  the  min- 
isters and  some  of  the  churches  in  the  shape  of  what  is  called 
"  advanced  thought"  in  Biblical  interpretation.  These  "ad- 
vanced "  ministers  and  churches  deny  the  full  inspiration  of 
the  Bible.  Genesis  is  an  allegory,  and  there  are  many  myths 
in  the  Bible,  and  they  philosophize  and  guess  and  reason  and 
evolute  until  they  land  in  a  great  cofitinoit  of  mud,  from 
which,  I  fear,  for  all  eternity  they  will  not  be  able  to  extri- 
cate themselves. 

Who  make  up  this  precious  group  of  advanced  thinkers 
to  whom  God  has  made  especial  revelation  in  our  time  of 
that  which  He  tried  to  make  known  thousands  of  years  ago 
and  failed  to  make  intelligible  ?  Are  they  so  distinguished 
for  unworldliness,  piety,  and  scholarship  that  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected that  they  would  have  been  chosen  to  fix  up  the  de- 
fective work  of  Moses  and  Isaiah  and  Paul  and  Christ  ? 

Is  it  all  possible?  I  wonder  on  what  mountain  these 
modern  exegetes  were  transfigured  ?  I  wonder  what  star 
pointed  down  to  their  birthplace!  Was  it  the  north-star,  or 
the  evening  star,  or  the  Dipper?  As  they  came  through 
and  descended  to  our  world  did  Mars  blush  or  Saturn  lose 
one  of  its  rings  ?  When  I  find  these  modern  wiseacres  at- 
tempting to  improve  upon  the  work  of  the  Almighty  and  to 
interlard  it  with  their  wisdom  and  to  suggest  prophetic  and 
apostolic  errata,  I  am  filled  with  a  disgust  insufferable.  Ad- 
vanced thought,  which  proposes  to  tell  the  Lord  what  He 
ought  to  have  said  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  would  have 
said  if  He  had  been  as  wise  as  His  nineteenth  century  critics  ! 
I  have  two  wonders  in  regard  to  these  men.  The  first  one 
is  how  the  Lord  got  along  without  them  before  they  were 
born.  The  second  wonder  is  how  the  Lord  will  get  along 
without  them  after  they  are  dead. 

"But,"  say  some,  "  do  you  really  think  the  Scriptures  are 
inspired  thought  ?"  Yes,  either  as  history  or  as  guidance. 
Gibbon  and  Josephus  and  Prescott  record  in  their  histories 


144  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

a  great  many  things  they  did  not  approve  of.  When  George 
Bancroft  puts  upon  his  briUiant  historical  page  the  account 
of  an  Indian  massacre,  does  he  approve  of  that  massacre? 
There  are  scores  of  things  in  the  Bible  wiiich  neither  God 
nor  inspired  m?n  sanctioned. 

"  But,"  says  some  one,  "don't  you  think  that  the  copyists 
might  have  made  mistakes  in  transferring  the  divine  words 
from  one  manuscript  to  another?"  Yes,  no  doubt  there 
were  such  mistakes;  but  they  no  more  afTect  the  meaning  of 
the  Scriptures  than  the  misspelHng  of  a  word  or  the  ungram- 
matical  structure  of  a  sentence  in  a  last  will  and  testament 
affect  the  validity  or  the  meaning  of  that  will.  All  the  mis- 
takes made  by  the  copyists  in  the  Scriptures  do  not  amount 
to  any  more  importance  than  the  difference  between  your 
spelling  in  a  document  the  word  forty,  forty  or  fourty.  This 
book  is  the  last  will  and  testament  of  God  to  our  lost  world, 
and  it  bequeaths  everything  in  the  right  way,  although  hu- 
man hands  may  have  damaged  the  grammar  or  made  unjus- 
tifiable interpolation. 

These  men  who  pride  themselves  in  our  day  on  being  ad- 
vanced thinkers  in  Biblical  interpretation  will  all  of  them  end 
in  atheism,  if  they  live  long  enough,  and  I  declare  here  that 
they  are  doing  more  in  the  different  denominations  of  Chris- 
tians, and  throughout  the  world,  for  damaging  Christianity 
and  hindering  the  cause  of  the  world's  betterment  than  five 
thousand  Robert  Ingersolls  could  do.  That  man  who  stands 
inside  a  castle  is  far  more  dangerous  if  he  be  an  enemy  than 
five  thousand  enemies  outside  the  castle.  Robert  G.  Inger- 
soll  assails  the  castle  from  the  outside.  These  men  who  pre- 
tend to  be  advanced  thinkers  in  all  the  denominations  are 
fighting  the  truth  from  the  inside,  and  trying  to  shove  back 
the  bolts  and  swing  open  the  gates. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  Bible  that  staggers  me.  There 
are  many  things  I  do  not  understand — I  do  not  pretend  to 
understand — never  shall  in  this  world  understand.  But  that 
would  be  a  very  poor  God  who  could  be  full)-  understood  by 
the  human.  That  would  be  a  very  small  Infinite  that  can  be 
measured  by  the  finite.     You  must  not  expect  to  weigh  the 


THE  HIGHER   CRITICISM.  145 

thunderbolts  of  Omnipotence  in  an  apothecary's  balances. 
Starting  with  the  idea  that  God  can  do  anything,  and  that 
He  was  present  at  the  beginning,  and  that  He  is  present 
now,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  arouse  scepti- 
cism in  my  heart. 

A  WHOLE   BIBLE   FROM    LID   TO   LID. 

I  am  opposed  to  the  expurgation  of  the  Scriptures  becauce 
the  Bible  in  its  present  shape  has  been  so  miraculously  pre- 
served. Fifteen  hundred  years  after  Herodotus  wrote  his 
history,  there  was  only  one  manuscript  cop}.'  of  it.  Twelve 
hundred  years  after  Plato  wrote  his  book,  there  was  only  one 
manuscript  copy  of  it.  God  was  so  careful  to  have  us  have 
the  Bible  in  just  the  right  shape  that  we  have  fifty  manu- 
script copies  of  the  New  Testament  a  thousand  years  old, 
and  many  of  them  fifteen  hundred  years  old — a  Book  handed 
down  from  the  time  of  Christ,  or  just  after  the  time  of  Christ, 
by  the  hand  of  such  men  as  Origen  in  the  second  century 
and  Tertullian  in  the  third  century, — men  of  different  ages 
who  died  for  their  principles.  The  three  best  copies  of  the 
New  Testament  manuscript  are  in  the  possession  of  three  great 
churches — the  Protestant  Church  of  England,  the  Greek 
Church  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  Roman  Church  of  Italy. 

It  is  a  plain  matter  of  history  that  Tischcndorf  -went  to  a 
convent  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai  and  was  by  ropes  lifted  over 
the  wall  into  the  convent,  that  being  the  only  mode  of  admis- 
sion, and  that  he  saw  there  in  the  waste  basket  for  kindling 
for  the  fires,  a  manuscript  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  That 
night  he  copied  many  of  the  passages  of  that  Bible,  but  it 
was  not  until  fifteen  years  had  passed  of  earnest  entreaty 
and  prayer  and  coaxing  and  purchase  on  his  part  that  that 
copy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
Emperor  of  Russia — that  one  copy  so  marvellously  protected. 

Do  you  not  know  that  the  catalogue  of  the  books  oi  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments,  as  we  have  it,  is  the  same  catalogue 
that  has  been  coming  on  down  through  the  ages.''  Thirty 
nine  books  of  the  Old  Testament  thousands  of  years  ago. 


146  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Thirty-nine  now.  Twenty-seven  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment sixteen  hundred  years  ago.  Twenty-seven  books  of 
the  New  Testament  now.  Marcion,  for  wickedness,  was 
turned  out  of  the  Church  in  the  second  century,  and,  in  his 
assault  on  the  Bible  and  Christianity,  he  incidentally  gives  a 
catalogue  of  the  books  of  the  Bible — that  catalogue  corre- 
sponding exactly  with  ours — testimony  given  by  the  enemy 
of  the  Bible  and  the  enemy  of  Christianity.  The  catalogue 
now  just  hke  the  catalogue  then.  Assaulted  and  spit  on  and 
torn  to  pieces  and  burned,  yet  adhering.  The  book  to-day, 
in  three  hundred  languages,  confronting  four  fifths  of  the 
human  race  in  their  own  tongue.  Three  hundred  million 
copies  of  it  in  existence.  Does  not  that  look  as  if  this  Book 
had  been  divinely  protected,  as  if  God  had  guarded  it  all 
through  the  centuries?  The  epidemics  which  have  swept 
thousands  of  other  books  into  the  sepulchre  of  forgetfulness, 
have  only  brightened  the  fame  of  this.  There  is  not  one 
book  out  of  a  thousand  that  lives  five  years.  Any  publisher 
will  tell  you  that.  There  will  not  be  more  than  one  book 
out  of  fifty  thousand  that  will  live  a  century.  Yet  here  is  a 
Book,  much  of  it  sixteen  hundred  years  old,  and  much  of  it 
four  thousand  years  old,  and  with  more  rebound  and  resili- 
ence and  strength  in  it  than  when  the  Book  was  first  put 
upon  parchment  or  papyrus.  This  Book  was  the  cradle  of 
all  other  books,  and  it  will  see  their  graves.  Would  you  not 
think  that  an  old  book  like  this,  some  of  it  forty  centuries 
old,  would  come  along  hobbling  with  age  and  on  crutches? 
Instead  of  that,  it  is  more  potent  than  any  other  book  of  the 
time.  More  copies  of  it  printed  in  the  last  ten  years  than 
of  any  other  book — Walter  Scott's  Waverley  Novels,  Macau- 
lay's  "  History  of  England,"  Disraeli's  "  Endymion,"  and  all 
the  popular  books  of  the  day  having  no  such  sale  in  the  last 
ten  years  as  this  old  well-worn  Book.  Do  you  know  what  a 
struggle  a  book  has  in  order  to  get  through  one  century  or 
two  centuries? 


THE  HIGHER   CRITICISM.  I47. 


LOST  LITERARY  TREASURES. 


Some  old  books,  during  a  fire  in  a  seraglio  of  Constanti- 
nople, were  thrown  into  the  street.  A  man  without  any 
education  picked  up  one  of  those  books,  read  it,  and  did  not 
see  the  value  of  it.  A  scholar  looked  over  his  shoulder  and 
saw  it  was  the  first  and  second  decades  of  Livy,  and  he 
offered  the  man  a  large  reward  if  he  would  bring  the  book 
to  his  study  ;  but  in  the  excitement  of  the  fire,  the  two  parted, 
and  the  first  and  second  decades  of  Livy  were  forever  lost. 
Pliny  wrote  twenty  books  of  history ;  all  lost.  The  most  of 
Meander's  writings  lost.  Of  one  hundred  and  thirty  come- 
dies of  Plautus,  all  gone  but  twenty.  Euripides  wrote  a 
hundred  dramas,  all  gone  but  nineteen,  ^schylus  wrote  a 
hundred  dramas,  all  gone  but  seven.  Varro  wrote  the  labori- 
ous biographies  of  seven  hundred  Romans,  not  a  fragment 
left.  Quintilian  wrote  his  favorite  book  on  the  corruption 
of  eloquence,  all  lost.  Thirty  books  of  Tacitus  lost.  Dion 
Cassius  wrote  eighty  books,  only  twenty  remain.  Berosus's 
history  all  lost. 

Nearly  all  the  old  books  are  mummified  and  are  lying  in 
the  tombs  of  old  libraries,  and  perhaps  once  in  twenty  years 
some  man  comes  along  and  picks  up  one  of  them  and  blows 
the  dust  off,  and  opens  it  and  finds  it  the  book  he  docs  not 
want.  But  this  old  Book,  much  of  it  forty  centuries  old, 
stands  to-day  more  discussed  than  any  other  book,  and  it 
challenges  the  admiration  of  all  the  good,  and  the  spite, 
venom,  animosity,  and  hypercriticism  of  earth  and  hell. 

"  Well,"  says  one,  "  now  I  am  ready  to  take  the  New 
Testament  as  from  the  heart  of  Christ,  and  I  am  ready  to 
believe  the  prophecies.  The  evidence  is  beyond  all  dispute. 
But  you  must  remember,"  says  my  friend,  "  that  the  prophe- 
cies are  only  a  small  part  of  the  old  book  ;  you  don't  expect 
us  to  believe  all  the  old  book."  If  you  found  one  of  your 
good,  honest  letters  in  an  envelope  with  ten  or  twenty  ob- 
scene, cruel,  lying,  filthy  letters,  how  long  would  you  allow 
that  honest  letter  to  stay  here.     In  a  half  minute  you  would 


148  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

cither  snatch  it  out  of  the  envelope,  or  you  destroy  the  whole 
envelope.  Now,  do  you  suppose  the  Lord  God  would  allow 
these  pure  prophecies,  these  prophecies  which  you  admit  must 
have  come  from  the  hand  of  God,  from  divine  inspiration,  to 
be  bound  up  and  put  in  the  same  envelope  with  the  Book  of 
Job,  and  the  Book  of  Psalms,  and  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy 
and  the  other  books,  if  those  books  were  not  good  books? 

Beside  all  this,  you  must  remember  that  the  most  of  the 
writers  of  this  book  were  uneducated  men.  How  can  you 
account  for  the  fact  that  when  Thomas  Babington  Macau- 
lay,  standing  in  the  House  of  Parliament  in  London,  wants 
to  finish  off  a  magnificent  sentence,  he  quotes  from  the  fish- 
ermen of  Galilee?  or,  sitting  in  his  house,  wanting  to  finish 
one  of  his  great  paragraphs  of  history,  he  quotes  the  words 
of  the  fisherman  of  Galilee?  Why  is  it  that  those  uneducated 
men  have  more  influence  on  modern  times  than  all  the 
scholars  of  antiquity?  Because  they  were  divinely  inspired, 
because  God  stood  back  of  them. 

Beside  that,  you  must  remember  that  this  book  has  been 
under  fire  for  centuries,  and  after  all  the  bombardment  of 
tl^  Ingersolls  of  all  the  centuries,  they  have  not  knocked 
olxt  of  this  Bible  a  piece  as  large  as  the  small  end  of  a  sharp 
needle.  O  !  how  the  old  book  sticks  together.  Unsanctified 
geologists  try  to  pull  away  the  Book  of  Genesis.  They  say 
they  do  not  believe  it ;  it  caimot  be  there  was  light  before 
the  sun  shone;  it  cannot  be  all  this  story  about  Adam  and 
Eve  ;  and  they  pull  at  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and  they  have 
been  pulling  a  great  while,  yet  where  is  the  Book  of  Genesis? 
Standing  just  where  it  stood  all  the  time.  There  is  not  a 
man  on  earth  who  has  ever  erased  it  from  his  Bible. 

And  so  infidels  have  been  trying  to  pull  away  the  mira- 
cles, pulling  away  at  the  blasted  fig  tree,  at  the  turning  of  the 
water  into  wine,  at  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  dead. 
Can  you  show  me  a  Bible  from  which  one  of  these  miracles 
has  been  erased  ? 

All  the  striking  at  these  chapters  only  drives  them  deeper 
until  they  are  clinched  on  the  other  side  with  the  hammers 


THE   HIGHER    CRITICISM.  1 49 

of  eternity.     And  the  book  is  going  to  keep  right  on   until 
the  fires  of  the  last  day. 


WHEN   WE   CAN   DO   WITHOUT   THE   BIBLE. 

What  will  be  the  use  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  descriptive 
of  how  the  world  was  made,  when  the  world  is  destroyed  ? 
What  will  be  the  use  of  the  prophecies  when  they  are  all 
fulfilled  ?  What  will  be  the  use  of  the  evangelistic  or  Paul- 
ine description  of  Jesus  Christ  when  we  see  Him  face  to  face  ? 
What  will  be  the  use  of  His  photograph  when  we  have  met 
Him  in  glory  ?  What  will  be  the  use  of  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, standing,  as  you  will,  with  your  foot  on  the  glassy 
sea,  and  your  hand  on  the  ringing  harp,  and  your  forehead 
chapleted  with  eternal  coronation  amid  the  amethystine  and 
twelve-gated  glories  of  heaven  ?  The  emerald  dashing  its 
green  against  the  beryl,  and  the  beryl  dashing  its  blue  against 
the  sapphire,  and  the  sapphire  throwing  its  light  on  the 
jacinth,  and  the  jacinth  dashing  its  fire  against  the  chryso- 
prase,  and  you  and  I  standing  in  the  chorus  of  ten  thousand 
sunsets. 

But  I  do  not  think  we  will  give  up  the  Bible  even  at  that 
time.  I  think  zuc  ivill  want  the  Bible  in  Jieaven.  I  really 
think  the  fires  of  the  last  day  will  not  consume  the  last  copy, 
for  when  you  and  I  get  our  dead  children  out  of  the  dust, 
we  want  to  show  them  just  the  passages,  just  the  promises, 
which  comforted  us  here  in  the  dark  day  of  interment,  and 
we  will  want  to  talk  over  with  Christians  who  have  had  trials 
and  struggles,  and  we  will  want  to  show  them  the  promises 
that  especially  refreshed  us.  I  think  we  shall  have  the  Bible 
in  heaven. 

O  !  I  want  to  hear  David  with  his  own  voice  read  :  "  The 
Lord  is  my  shepherd."  I  want  to  hear  Paul  with  his  own 
voice  read  :  "  Thanks  be  unto  God  that  giveth  us  the  vic- 
tory." I  want  to  hear  the  archangel  play  Paul's  march  of 
the  resurrection  with  the  same  trumpet  with  which  he  awoke 
the  dead.  O !  blessed  book,  good  enough  for  earth,  good 
enough  for  heaven.     Dear  old  book — book  bespattered  with 


150  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  blood  of  martyrs  wlio  died  for  its  defence — book  sprink- 
led all  over  with  the  tears  of  those  who  by  it  were  comforted. 
Put  it  in  the  hand  of  your  children  on  their  birthday.  Put 
it  on  the  table  in  the  sitting-room  when  you  begin  to  keep 
house.  Put  it  under  your  head  when  you  die.  Dear  old 
book  !  I  press  it  to  my  heart,  I  press  it  to  my  lips.  I  ap- 
peal to  your  common  sense,  if  a  book  so  divinely  guarded 
and  protected  in  its  present  shape,  must  not  be  in  just  the 
form  that  God  wants  it  ;  and  if  it  pleases  God  ought  it  not 
to  please  us? 

NO   ADDITIONS   MADE. 

Not  only  have  all  attempts  to  detract  from  the  Book 
failed,  but  all  attempts  to  add  to  it.  Many  attempts  were 
made  to  add  the  apochryphal  books  to  the  Old  Testament. 
The  Council  of  Trent,  the  Synod  of  Jerusalem,  the  Bishops  of 
Hippo,  all  decided  that  the  apochryphal  books  must  be 
added  to  the  Old  Testament.  "  They  must  stay  in,"  said 
those  learned  men  ;  but  they  stayed  out.  There  is  not  an  in- 
telligent Christian  man  that  to-day  will  put  the  Book  of 
Maccabeus  or  the  Book  of  Judith  beside  the  Book  of  Isaiah 
or  Romans.  Then  a  great  many  said,  "  we  must  have  books 
added  to  the  New  Testament,"  and  there  were  epistles  and 
Gospels  and  apocalypses  written  and  added  to  the  New 
Testament,  but  they  have  all  fallen  out.  You  cannot  add 
anything.  You  cannot  subtract  anything.  Divinely  pro- 
tected I?ook  in  the  present  shape.  Let  no  man  dare  to  lay 
his  hands  on  it  with  the  intention  of  detracting  from  the 
Book,  or  casting  out  any  of  these  holy  pages.  Expurgation 
means  annihilation.  Beside  that,  I  am  opposed  to  this  expur- 
gation of  the  Scriptures  because  if  the  attempt  were  success- 
ful, it  would  be  the  annihilation  of  the  Bible.  Infidel  geologists 
would  say,  "  out  with  the  Book  of  Genesis ;"  infidel  astrono- 
mers would  say,  "  out  with  the  Book  of  Joshua  ;"  people  who 
do  not  believe  in  the  atoning  sacrifice  would  say,  "  out  with 
the  Book  of  Leviticus  ;"  people  who  do  not  believe  in  the 
miracles  would  say,  "  out  with  all  those  wonderful  stories  in  the 


THE  HIGHER    CRITICISM.  I5I 

Old  and  New  Testament ;"  and  some  would  say,  ''out  with 
the  Book  of  Revelation ;"  and  others  would  say,  "  out  with 
the  entire  Pentateuch,"  and  the  work  would  go  on  until  there 
would  not  be  enough  of  the  Bible  left  to  be  worth  as  much 
as  last  year's  almanac.  The  expurgation  of  the  Scriptures 
means  their  annihilation. 


GOOD   PEOPLE   SATISFIED. 

I  am  opposed  to  this  proposed  expurgation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures for  the  fact  that  in  proportion  as  people  become  self- 
sacrificing  and  good  and  holy  and  consecrated,  tJiey  like  the 
Book  as  it  is.  I  have  yet  to  find  a  man  or  a  woman  distin- 
guished for  self-sacrifice,  for  consecration  to  God,  for  holi- 
ness of  life,  who  wants  the  Bible  changed.  Many  of  us  have 
inherited  family  Bibles.  Those  Bibles  were  in  use  twenty, 
forty,  fifty,  perhaps  a  hundred  years  in  the  generations. 
Take  down  those  family  Bibles,  and  find  out  if  there  are  any 
chapters  which  have  been  erased  by  lead  pencil  or  pen,  and 
if  in  any  margins  you  can  find  the  words  :  "this  chapter  not 
fit  to  read."  There  has  been  plenty  of  opportunity  during 
the  last  half  century  privately  to  expurgate  the  Bible.  Do 
you  know  any  case  of  such  expurgation?  Did  not  your 
grandfather  give  it  to  your  father,  and  did  not  your  father 
give  it  to  you  ? 

ACHIEVEMENTS   OF   ORTHODOXY. 

Now,  I  want  to  show  you,  as  a  matter  of  advocacy  for 
what  I  believe  to  be  the  right,  the  splendors  of  orthodoxy. 
Many  have  supposed  that  its  disciples  are  people  of  flat 
skulls,  and  no  reading,  and  behind  the  age,  and  the  victims  of 
gullibility.  I  shall  show  you  that  the  word  orthodoxy  stands 
for  the  greatest  splendors  outside  of  heaven.  Behold  the 
splendors  of  its  achievements.  All  the  missionaries  of  the 
Gospel  the  world  round  are  men  who  believe  in  an  entire 
Bible.  Call  the  roll  of  all  the  missionaries  who  are  to-day 
enduring  sacrifices  in  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  the  cause  of 


152  IKUMPET  PEALS. 

religion  and  the  world's  betterment,  and  they  all  believe  in 
an  entire  Bible.  Just  as  soon  as  a  missionary  begins  to  doubt 
whether  there  ever  was  a  Garden  of  Eden,  or  whether  there 
is  any  such  thing  as  future  punishment,  he  comes  right  home 
from  Beyrout  or  Madras,  and  goes  into  the  insurance  busi- 
ness !  All  the  missionary  societies  of  this  day  are  ofificered 
by  orthodox  men,  and  are  supported  by  orthodox  churches. 
Orthodoxy,  beginning  with  the  Sandwich  islands,  has 
captured  vast  regions  of  barbarism  for  civilization,  while 
heterodoxy  has  to  capture  the  first  square  inch.  Blatant  for 
many  years  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  and 
strutting  about  with  a  peacockian  braggadocia  it  has  yet  to 
capture  the  first  continent,  the  first  State,  the  first  township, 
the  first  ward,  the  first  space  of  ground  as  big  as  you  could 
cover  with  the  small  end  of  a  sharp  pin.  Ninety-nine  out  of 
every  hundred  of  the  Protestant  churches  of  America  were 
built  by  people  who  believed  in  an  entire  Bible.  The  pulpit 
now  may  preach  some  other  Gospel,  but  it  is  a  heterodox  gun 
on  an  orthodox  carriage.  The  foundations  of  all  the  churches 
that  are  of  very  great  use  in  this  world  to-day  were  laid  by 
men  who  believed  the  Bible  from  lid  to  lid,  and  if  I  cannot 
take  it  in  that  way  I  will  not  take  it  at  all ;  just  as  if  I  re- 
ceived a  letter  that  pretended  to  come  from  a  friend,  and 
part  of  it  was  his  and  part  somebody  else's,  a  sort  of  literary 
mongrelism,  I  would  throw  the  garbled  sheets  into  the  waste 
basket. 


THE   SURE    FOUNDATION. 

No  church  of  very  great  influence  to-day  but  was  built 
by  those  who  believed  in  an  entire  Bible.  Neither  will  a 
church  last  long  built  on  a  part  of  the  Bible.  You  have 
noticed,  I  suppose,  that  as  soon  as  a  man  begins  to  give  up 
the  Bible  he  is  apt  to  preach  in  some  hall,  and  he  has  an 
audience  while  he  lives,  and  when  he  dies  the  church  dies. 
If  I  thought  that  my  church  was  built  on  a  quarter  of  a 
Bible,  or  a  half  of  a  Bible,  or  throe  cjuartors  of  a  Bil)lc.  or 
ninet\"-nint'  (nic  hundredths  of  a  Bible,  I  would   i-xpcct  it  to 


THE  HIGHER    CRITICISM.  1 53 

die  when  I  die ;  but  wlien  I  know  it  is  built  on  tlie  entire 
Word  of  God,  I  know  it  will  last  two  hundred  years  after 
you  and  I  sleep  the  last  sleep.  O  the  splendors  of  an  or- 
thodoxy which,  with  ten  thousand  hands  and  ten  thousand 
pulpits  and  ten  thousand  Christian  churches,  is  trying  to 
save  the  world  ! 

In  Music  Hall,  Boston,  for  many  years  stood  Theodore 
Parker  battling  orthodoxy,  giving  it,  as  some  supposed  at 
that  time,  its  death  wound.  He  was  the  most  fascinating 
man  I  ever  heard  or  ever  expect  to  hear,  and  I  came  out 
from  hearing  him  thinking,  in  my  boyhood  way,  "  Well, 
that's  the  death  of  the  Church."  On  that  same  street,  and 
not  far  from  being  opposite,  stood  Park  Congregational 
Church,  called  by  its  enemies  "  Hell-fire  Corner."  Theodore 
Parker  died,  and  his  church  died  with  him ;  or,  if  it  is  in 
existence,  it  is  so  small  you  cannot  see  it  with  the  naked 
eye.  Park  Congregational  Church  still  stands  on  "  Hell-fire 
Corner,"  thundering  away  the  magnificent  truths  of  this 
glorious  orthodoxy  just  as  though  Theodore  Parker  had 
never  lived.  All  that  Boston,  or  Brooklyn,  or  New  York,  or 
the  world  ever  got  that  is  worth  having  came  through  the 
wide  aqueduct  of  orthodoxy  from  the  throne  of  God. 

Behold  the  splendors  of  character  built  by  orthodoxy. 
Who  had  the  greatest  human  intellect  the  world  ever  knew? 
Paul.  In  physical  stature  insignificant ;  in  mind,  head,  and 
shoulders  above  all  the  giants  of  the  age.  Orthodox  from 
scalp  to  heel.  Who  was  the  greatest  poet  the  ages  ever  saw, 
acknowledged  to  be  so  both  by  infidels  and  Christians? 
John  Milton,  seeing  more  without  eyes  than  anybody  else 
ever  saw  with  eyes.  Orthodox  from  scalp  to  heel.  Who 
was  the  greatest  reformer  the  world  has  ever  seen  ?  so  ac- 
knowledged by  infidels  as  well  as  by  Christians.  Martin 
Luther.     Orthodox  from  scalp  to  heel. 

THE   CERTITUDES. 

O  man,  believing  in  an  entire  Bible,  where  did  you  come 
from  ?     Answer  :  "  I  descended  from  a  perfect  parentage  in 


154  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Paradise,  and  Jclio\-ah  breathed  into  ni}'  nostrils  tlic  breath 
of  life.  I  am  a  son  of  God."  O  man,  bclievin<^  in  a  half- 
and-iialf  Bible — believing  in  a  Bible  in  spots,  where  did  you 
come  from  ?  Answer  :  "  It  is  all  uncertain  ;  in  my  ancestral 
line  away  back  there  was  an  orang-outang  and  a  tadpole  and 
a  polywog,  and  it  took  millions  of  years  to  get  meevoluted." 

0  man,  believing  in  a  Bible  in  spots,  where  are  you  going  to 
when  you  quit  this  world  ?  Answer:  "  Going  into  a  great 
to  be,  so  on  into  the  great  somewhere,  and  then  I  shall  pass 
through  on  to  the  great  anywhere,  and  I  shall  probably  ar- 
rive in  the  nowhere."  That  is  zvJicrc  I  thought  you  would 
fetch  up.  O  man,  believing  in  an  entire  Bible,  and  believ- 
ing with  all  your  heart,  where  are  you  going  to  when  you 
leave  this  world?  Answer:  "I  am  going  to  my  Father's 
house  ;  I  am  going  into  the  companionship  of  my  loved  ones 
who  have  gone  before  ;  I  am  going  to  leave  all   my  sins,  and 

1  am  going  to  be  with  God  and  like  God  forever  and  for- 
ever." Oh,  the  glorious  certitudes,  certainties  of  ortho- 
doxy! 

"  Where  shall  I  goT'  said  a  dying  Hindoo  to  the  Brah- 
mitic  priest  to  whom  he  had  given  money  to  pray  for  his  sal- 
vation. "  Where  shall  I  go  after  I  die  ?"  The  Brahmitic 
priest  said  :  "  You  will  first  of  all  go  into  a  holy  quadruped." 
"  But,"  said  the  dying  Hindoo,  "  where  shall  I  go  then  ?" 
"  Then  you  shall  go  into  a  singing  bird."  "  But,"  said  the 
dying  Hindoo,  "  where  then  shall  I  go?"  "  Then,"  .said  the 
lirahmitic  priest,  "  you  will  go  into  a  beautiful  flower."  The 
dying  Hindoo  threw  up  his  arms  in  an  agony  of  solicitation 
as  he  said  :  "  But  where  shall  I  go  last  of  all  ?"  Thank  God 
this  Bible  tells  the  Hindoo,  tells  you,  tells  mc,  not  where 
shall  I  go  to-day,  not  where  shall  I  go  to-morrow,  not  where 
shall  I  go  next  year,  but  where  shall  I  go  last  of  all ! 

CONTRASTED   DEATH-BEDS. 

Those  who  den\'  the  Bible,  or  deny  any  part  of  it,  never 
die  well.  They  either  go  out  in  darkness  or  the}-  go  out  in 
silence  portentous.     You   may  gather  up  all  the  biographies 


THE  HIGHER   CRITICISM.  I55 

that  have  come  forth  since  the  art  of  prhiting  was  invented, 
and  I  challenge  you  to  show  me  a  triumphant  death  of  a 
man  who  rejected  the  Scriptures,  or  rejected  any  part  of 
them.  Here  I  make  a  great  zvide  avcmic.  On  the  one  side 
I  put  the  death-beds  of  those  who  beheve  in  an  entire  Bible. 
On  the  other  side  of  that  avenue  I  put  the  death-beds  of 
those  who  reject  part  of  the  Bible,  or  all  of  the  Bible.  Now, 
take  my  arm  and  let  us  pass  through  this  dividing  avenue. 
Look  off  upon  the  right  side.  Here  are  the  death-beds  on 
the  right  side  of  this  avenue,  "  Victory  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ!"  "Free  grace!"  "Glory,  glory!"  "I  am 
sweeping  through  the  gates  washed  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb  !"  "  The  chariots  are  coming  !"  "  I  mount,  I  fly  !" 
"  Wings,  wings  !"  "  They  are  coming  for  me  !"  "  Peace,  be 
still !"  Alfred  Cookman's  death-bed,  Richard  Cecil's  death- 
bed. Commodore  Foote's  death-bed.  Your  father's  death- 
bed, your  mother's  death-bed,  your  sister's  death-bed,  your 
child's  death-bed.  Ten  thousand  radiant,  songful  death-beds 
of  those  who  believed  an  entire  Bible. 

Now,  take  my  arm  and  let  us  go  through  that  avenue, 
and  look  off  upon  the  other  side.  No  smile  of  hope.  No  shout 
of  triumph.  No  face  supernaturally  illumined.  Those  who 
reject  any  part  of  the  Bible  never  die  well.  No  beckoning 
for  angels  to  come.  No  listening  for  the  celestial  escort. 
Without  any  exception  they  go  out  of  the  world  because 
they  are  pushed  out  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  list  of  those 
who  believed  in  an  entire  Bible  and  went  out  of  the  world  in 
triumph  is  a  list  so  long  it  seems  interminable.  O !  is  not  that 
a  splendid  influence,  this  orthodoxy,  which  makes  that  which 
must  otherwise  be  the  most  dreadful  hour  of  life — the  last 
hour — positively  paradisaical  ? 

STAND    BY   THE   OLD   PATHS. 

"  Ask  for  the  old  paths,  walk  therein,  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  for  your  souls."  But  follow  this  crusade  against  any 
part  of  the  Bible,  and  first  of  all  you  will  give  up  Genesis, 
which  is  as  true  as  Matthew  ;  then   }'ou  will   give  up  all  the 


156  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

historical  parts  of  the  Bible  ;  then  after  a  while  you  will  give 
up  the  miracles  ;  then  you  will  find  it  convenient  to  give  up 
the  Ten  Commandments  ;  and  then  after  a  while  you  will  wake 
up  in  a  fountainiess,  rockless,  treeless  desert  swept  by  ever- 
lasting sirocco.  If  you  are  laughed  at,  you  can  afford  to  be 
laughed  at,  for  standing  by  the  Bible  just  as  God  has  given  it 
to  you  and  miraculousl}'  preserved  it. 

Do  not  jump  overboard  from  the  stanch  old  Great  East- 
ern of  old-fashioned  orthodoxy  until  there  is  something 
ready  to  take  you  up  stronger  than  the  fantastic  yawl  which 
has  painted  on  the  side  "  Advanced  Thought,"  and  which 
leaks  at  the  prow  and  leaks  at  the  stern,  and  has  a  steel  pen 
for  one  oar  and  a  glib  tongue  for  the  other  oar,  and  now  tips 
over  this  way  and  then  tips  over  that  way,  until  you  do  not 
know  whether  the  passengers  will  land  in  the  breakers  of 
despair  or  on  the  sinking  sand  of  infidelity  and  atheism. 

I  am  in  full  sympathy  with  the  advancements  of  our 
time,  but  this  world  will  never  advance  a  single  inch  beyond 
this  old  Bible.  God  was  just  as  capable  of  dictating  the 
truth  to  the  prophets  and  apostles  as  He  is  capable  of  dictat- 
ing the  truth  to  these  modern  apostles  and  prophets.  God 
has  not  learned  anything  in  a  thousand  years.  He  knew  just 
as  much  when  He  gave  the  first  dictation  as  the  last  dicta- 
tion. So  I  will  stick  to  the  old  paths.  Naturally  a  sceptic, 
and  preferring  new  things  to  old,  I  never  so  much  as  now 
felt  the  truth  of  the  entire  Bible,  especially  as  I  see  into  what 
spectacular  imbecility  men  rush  when  they  try  to  chop  up 
the  Scriptures  with  the  meat-axe  of  their  own  preferences, 
now  calling  upon  philosophy,  now  calling  on  the  Church, 
now  calling  on  God,  now  calling  on  the  devil.  I  prefer  the 
thick,  warm  robe  of  the  old  religion — old  as  God — the  robe 
which  has  kept  so  many  warm  amid  the  cold  pilgrimage  of 
this  life  and  amid  the  chills  of  death.  The  old  robe  rather 
than  the  thin,  uncertain  gauze  offered  us  b}-  these  wiseacres 
who  believe  the  Bible  in  spots. 


CHAPTER  V. 
Theory  of  a  Posthumous  Opportunity. 

[Next  in  enormity  to  Higher  Criticism  is  the  fallacious  expecta- 
tion of  "A  SECOND  CHANCE,"  or  a  Posthumous  Opportunity 
of  Salvation  ;  perhaps  the  more  mischievous  device  of  Satan. — [Edi- 
tor]. 

"  If  the  tree  fall  toward  the  south,  or  toward  the  north,  in  the  place 
where  the  tree  falleth,  there  it  shall  be." — Eccles.  11:3. 

Here  we  have  figuratively  announced  the  orthodox  doc- 
trine of  two  destinies.  Palace  and  penitentiary.  Palace  with 
gates  on  all  sides  through  which  all  may  enter  and  live  on 
celestial  luxuries  world  without  end,  and  all  for  the  knocking 
and  the  asking.  A  palace  grander  than  if  all  the  Alhambras 
and  the  Versailles  and  the  Windsor  castles  and  the  Winter 
Gardens  and  the  imperial  abodes  of  all  the  earth  were  heaved 
up  into  one  architectural  glory.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
universe  a  penitentiary  where  men  who  want  their  sins  can 
have  them.  The  first  of  no  use  unless  you  have  the  last. 
Brooklyn  and  New  York  would  be  better  places  to  live  in 
with  Raymond  Street  jail  and  the  Tombs  and  Sing  Sing,  and 
all  the  small-pox  hospitals  emptied  on  us  than  heaven  would 
be  if  there  were  no  hell. 

Thomas  Paine  and  George  Whitefield,  Jezebel  and  Mary 
Lyon,  Nero  and  Charles  Wesley,  Charles  Guiteau  and  James 
A.  Garfield,  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  Abraham  Lincoln — all 
in  glory  together!  All  the  innocent  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren who  were  massacred,  side  by  side  with  their  murderers. 
If  we  are  all  coming  out  at  the  same  destiny,  without  regard 
to  character,  then  it  is  true.  I  turn  away  from  such  a  de- 
bauched heaven.  Against  that  cauldron  of  piety  and  blas- 
phemy, philanthropy    and    assassination,    self-sacrifice    and 

157 


158  TRLMPET  PEAI.S. 

beastliness,  I  place  the  two  destinies  of  the  Bible  forever  and 
forever  and  forever  apart. 


PAIN  DOES   NOT  CURE. 

Common-sense,  as  well  as  revelation,  declares  that  such 
an  expectation  is  chimerical.  You  say  that  tlic  impenitent 
man  having  got  into  the  next  world  and  seeing  the  disaster 
will,  as  a  result  of  that  disaster,  turn,  the  pain  the  cause  of 
his  reformation.  ]kit  )-ou  can  find  ten  thousand  instances 
in  this  world  of  men  who  have  done  wrong  and  distress  over- 
took them  suddenly.  Did  the  distress  cure  them  ?  No ; 
they  went  right  on. 

Pain  does  not  correct.  Suffering  does  not  reform.  Take 
up  the  printed  reports  of  the  prisons  of  the  United  States, 
and  you  will  find  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  incarcerated 
have  been  there  before,  some  of  them  four,  five,  six  times. 
What  is  true  in  one  sense  is  true  in  all  senses,  and  will  for- 
ever be  so,  and  yet  men  are  expecting  in  the  next  world  pur- 
gatorial rejuvenation.  With  a  million  illustrations  all  work- 
ing the  other  way  in  this  world,  people  are  expecting  that 
distress  in  the  next  state  will  be  salvatory,  though  they  know 
that  some  men  suffer  here  \\ithout  any  salutary  conse- 
quence. 

AN   UNPROPITIOUS    BEGINNING. 

Furthermore,  the  prospect  of  a  reformation  in  the  next 
world  is  more  improbable  than  a  reformation  here.  In  this 
world  the  life  started  with  innocence  of  infancy.  In  the  case 
supposed  the  other  life  will  open  with  all  the  accumulated 
bad  habits  of  many  years  upon  him.  Surely,  it  is  easier  to 
build  a  strong  ship  out  of  new  timber  than  out  of  an  old  hulk 
that  has  been  ground  up  in  the  breakers.  If  with  innocence 
to  start  with  in  this  life  a  man  docs  not  become  godly,  what 
prospect  is  there  that  in  the  next  world,  starting  with  sin, 
there  would  be  a  seraph  evoluted  ?  Surely  the  sculptor  has 
more  prospect  of  making  a  fine  statue  out  of  a  block  of  pure 


THEORY  OF  A    POSTHUMOUS  OPPORTUNITY.        I  59 

white  Parian  marble  than  out  of  an  old  black  rock  seamed 
and  cracked  with  the  storms  of  a  half  century.  Surely  upon 
a  clean,  white  sheet  of  paper  it  is  easier  to  write  a  deed  or  a 
will  than  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  all  scribbled  and  blotted  and 
torn  from  top  to  bottom.  Yet  men  seem  to  think  that, 
though  the  life  that  began  here  comparatively  perfect  turned 
out  badly,  the  next  life  will  succeed,  though  it  starts  with  a 
dead  failure. 

TIME  NO   REFORMER. 

"  But,"  says  some  one,  "  I  think  we  ought  to  have  a 
chance  in  the  next  life,  because  this  life  is  so  short  it  allows 
only  small  opportunity."  We  hardly  have  time  to  turn  around 
between  cradle  and  tomb,  the  wood  of  the  one  almost  touch- 
ing the  marble  of  the  other.  But  do  you  know  what  made 
the  ancient  deluge  a  necessity  ?  It  was  the  longevity  of  the 
antediluvians.  They  were  worse  in  the  second  century  of 
their  lifetime  than  in  the  first  hundred  years,  and  still  worse 
in  the  third  century,  and  still  worse  all  the  way  on  to  seven, 
eight,  and  nine  hundred  years,  and  the  earth  had  to  be 
washed,  and  scrubbed,  and  soaked,  and  anchored  clear  out 
of  sight  for  more  than  a  month  before  it  could  be  made  fit 
for  decent  people  to  live  in.  Longevity  never  cures  impeni- 
tency.  All  the  pictures  of  Time  represent  him  with  a  scythe 
to  cut,  but  I  never  saw  any  picture  of  Time  with  a  case  of 
medicines  to  heal.  Seneca  says  that  Nero  for  the  first  five 
years  of  his  public  life  was  set  up  for  an  example  of  clemen- 
cy and  kindness,  but  his  path  all  the  way  descended  until 
at  sixty-eight  he  became  a  suicide.  If  eight  hundred  years 
did  not  make  antediluvians  any  better,  but  only  made  them 
worse,  the  ages  of  eternity  could  have  no  effect  except  pro- 
longation of  depravity. 

UNPROPITIOUS   SURROUNDINGS. 

"  But,"  says  one,  "  in  the  future  state  evil  surroundings 
will  be  withdrawn  and  elevated  influences  substituted,  and 
hence  expurgation,  and  sublimation,  and  glorification."    But 


l6o  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  righteous,  all  their  sins  forgiven,  have  passed  on  into  a 
beatific  state,  and  consequently  the  unsaved  will  be  left 
alone.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  Dr.  Duff,  who  exhausted 
himself  in  teaching  Hindoos  the  way  to  heaven,  and  Dr. 
Abeel,  who  gave  his  life  in  the  evangelization  of  China,  and 
Adoniram  Judson,  who  toiled  for  the  redemption  of  Burmah, 
should  be  sent  down  by  some  celestial  missionary  society  to 
educate  those  who  wasted  all  their  earthly  existence.  Evan- 
gelistic and  missionary  efforts  are  ended.  The  entire  king- 
dom of  the  morally  bankrupt  by  themselves,  where  are  the 
salvatory  influences  to  come  from  ?  Can  one  speckled  and 
bad  apple  in  a  barrel  of  diseased  apples  turn  the  other  apples 
good  ?  Can  those  who  are  themselves  down  help  others  up? 
Can  those  who  have  themselves  failed  in  the  business  of  the 
soul  pay  the  debts  of  spiritual  insolvents  ?  Can  a  million 
wrongs  make  one  right  ? 

A   LAZARETTO   WORLD. 

Poneropolis  was  a  city  where  King  Philip  of  Tliracia  put 
all  the  bad  people  of  his  kingdom.  If  any  man  had  opened 
a  primary  school  at  Poneropolis,  I  do  not  think  the  parents 
from  other  cities  would  have  sent  their  children  there.  In- 
stead of  amendment  in  the  other  world,  all  the  associations, 
now  that  the  good  are  evolved,  will  be  degenerating  and  down- 
ward. You  would  not  want  to  send  a  man  to  a  cholera  or 
yellow-fever  hospital  for  his  health ;  and  the  great  lazaretto 
of  the  next  world,  containing  the  diseased  and  plague-struck, 
will  be  a  poor  place  for  moral  recover}'.  If  the  surroundings 
in  this  world  were  crowded  with  temptation,  the  surroundings 
in  the  next  world,  after  the  righteous  have  passed  up  and  on, 
will  be  a  thousand  per  cent  more  crowded  with  temptation. 

The  Count  of  Chateaubriand  made  his  little  son  sleep  at 
night  on  the  top  of  a  castle  turret,  where  the  winds  howled 
and  where  spectres  were  said  to  haunt  the  place  ;  and  while 
the  mother  and  sisters  almost  died  with  fright,  the  son  tells 
us  that  the  process  f^ave  him  ner\es  that  could  not  tremble 
and  a  courage  that  never  faltered.     But  1  don't  think  that 


THEORY  OF  A    POSTHUMOUS  OPPORTUNITY.        l6l 

towers  of  darkness  and  the  spectral  world  swept  by  Sirocco 
and  Euroclydon  will  ever  fit  one  for  the  land  of  eternal  sun- 
shine. I  wonder  what  is  the  curriculum  of  that  college  of 
Inferno,  where,  after  proper  preparation  by  the  sins  of  this 
life,  the  candidate  enters,  passing  on  from  Freshman  class  of 
depravity  to  Sophomore  of  abandonment,  and  from  Sopho- 
more to  Junior,  and  from  Junior  to  Senior,  and  day  of  gradu- 
ation comes,  and  with  diploma  signed  by  Satan,  the  presi- 
dent, and  other  professorial  demoniacs,  attesting  that  the 
candidate  has  been  long  enough  under  their  drill,  he  passes 
up  to  enter  heaven  !  Pandemonium  a  preparative  course  for 
heavenly  admission  !  Ah,  my  friends,  Satan  and  his  cohorts 
have  fitted  uncounted  multitudes  for  ruin,  but  never  fitted 
one  soul  for  happiness. 

A  DEMORALIZING  THEORY. 

Furthermore,  it  would  not  be  safe  for  this  world  if  men 
had  another  chance  in  the  next.  If  it  had  been  announced 
that  however  wickedly  a  man  might  act  in  this  world  he 
could  fix  it  up  all  right  in  the  next,  society  would  be  terribly 
demoralized,  and  the  human  race  demolished  in  a  few  years. 
The  fear  that  if  we  are  bad  and  unforgiven  here  it  will  not  be 
well  for  us  in  the  next  existence  is  the  chief  influence  that 
keeps  civilization  from  rushing  back  to  semi-barbarism,  and 
semi-barbarism  from  rushing  into  midnight  savagery,  and 
midnight  savagery  from  extinction,  for  it  is  the  astringent 
impression  of  all  nations.  Christian  and  heathen,  that  there 
is  no  future  chance  for  those  who  have  wasted  this. 

Multitudes  of  men  who  are  kept  within  bounds  would 
say,  "Go  to  now!  Let  me  get  all  out  of  this  life  there  is  in 
it.  Come,  gluttony,  and  inebriation,  and  uncleanness,  and 
revenge,  and  all  sensualities,  and  wait  upon  me  !  My  life 
may  be  somewhat  shortened  in  this  world  by  dissoluteness, 
but  that  will  only  make  heavenly  indulgence  on  a  larger 
scale  the  sooner  possible.  I  will  overtake  the  saints  at  last, 
and  will  enter  the  Heavenly  Temple  only  a  little  later  than 
those  who    behaved   themselves   here.     I  will    on    my  way 


1 62  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

to  heaven  take  a  little  wider  excursion  than  those  who  were 
on  earth  pious,  and  I  shall  go  to  heaven  vid  Gehenna  and 
vid  Sheol."  Another  chance  in  the  next  world  means  free 
license  and  wild  abandonment  in  this. 

Suppose  you  were  a  party  in  an  important  case  at  law, 
and  you  knew  from  consultation  with  judges  and  attorneys 
that  it^  would  be  tried  twice,  and  the  first  trial  would  be  of 
little  importance,  but  that  the  second  would  decide  every- 
thing, for  which  trial  Avould  you  make  the  most  preparation, 
for  which  retain  the  ablest  attorneys,  for  which  be  most 
anxious  about  the  attendance  of  witnesses?  You  would  put 
all  the  stress  upon  the  second  trial,  all  the  anxiety,  all  the 
expenditure,  saying,  "  The  first  is  nothing,  the  last  is  every- 
thing." Give  the  race  assurance  of  a  second  and  more  im- 
portant trial  in  the  subsequent  life,  and  all  the  preparation 
for  eternity  would  be  post-mortem,  post- funeral,  post-sepul- 
chral, and  the  world  with  one  jerk  be  pitched  off  into  im- 
piety and  godlessness. 

AN   infidel's   premonition. 

Voltaire,  while  rejecting  the  whole  Bible,  did  not  seem 
to  be  so  very  well  persuaded  of  the  non-existence  of  perdi- 
tion, for  when  his  friend  wrote  to  him,  "  I  have  found  out 
for  sure  that  there  is  no  hell,  Voltaire  replied,  "  I  congratu- 
late you  ;  I  am  not  so  fortunate  as  you  are." 

SUFFICIENT  CHANCES   IN  LIFE. 

Furthermore,  let  me  ask  wh)-  a  chance  should  be  given 
in  the  next  world  if  we  have  refused  innumerable  chances  in 
this  ?  Suppose  you  give  a  banquet,  and  you  invite  a  vast 
number  of  friends,  but  one  man  declines  to  come,  or  treats 
your  invitation  with  indifference.  You  in  the  course  of 
twenty  years  give  twenty  banquets,  and  the  same  man  is  in- 
vited to  thcfe  all,  and  treats  them  all  in  the  same  obnoxious 
way.  After  a  while  you  remove  to  another  house,  larger 
and  better,  and  )'ou  again   invite  your  friends,  but  send  no 


THEORY  OF  A    POSTHUMOUS   02\P0RTUNITY.        1 65 

invitation  to  the  man  who  dccHned  or  neglcother  chance  in 
invitations.     Are  you  to  blame  ?     Has  he  a  rigi. 
to  be  invited  after  all  the  indignities  he  has  done  yo. 
in  this  world  has  invited  us  all  to  the  banquet  of  His  ^ 
He  invited  us  by  His  Providence  and  His  Spirit  three  i. 
dred  and  sixty-five  days  of  every  year  since   we   knew  ou"^ 
right  hand  from  our  left.     If  we  declined  it  every  time,  or 
treated  the  invitation  with  indifference,  and  gave  twenty  or 
forty  or  fifty  years  of  indignity  on  our  part  toward  the  Ban- 
queter, and  at  last  He  spreads  the  banquet  in  a  more  luxu- 
riant and  kingly  place,  amid  the  heavenly  gardens,  have  we 
a  right  to  expect  Him  to  invite  us  again,  and  have  we  a  right 
to  blame  Him  if  He  does  not  invite  us? 

THE    GOSPEL    SHIP. 

If  twelve  gates  of  salvation  stood  open  twenty  years  or 
fifty  years  for  our  admission,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time 
they  are  closed,  can  we  complain  of  it  and  say,  "  These  gates 
ought  to  be  open  again.  Give  us  another  chance  "?  If  the 
steamer  is  to  sail  for  Hamburg,  and  we  want  to  get  to  Ger- 
many by  that  line,  and  we  read  in  every  evening  and  every 
morning  newspaper  that  it  will  sail  on  a  certain  day,  for  two 
weeks  we  have  that  advertisement  before  our  eyes,  and  then 
we  go  down  to  the  docks  fifteen  minutes  after  it  has  shoved 
off  into  the  stream  and  say:  "  Come  back.  Give  me  another 
chance.  It  is  not  fair  to  treat  me  in  this  way.  Swing  up 
to  the  dock  again,  and  throw  out  the  planks,  and  let  me 
come  on  board."  Such  behavior  would  invite  arrest  as  a 
madman. 

And  if,  after  the  Gospel  ship  has  lain  at  anchor  before 
our  eyes  for  years  and  years  and  years,  and  all  the  benign 
voices  of  earth  and  heaven  have  urged  us  to  get  on  board, 
as  she  might  sail  away  any  moment,  and  after  a  while  she 
sails  without  us,  is  it  common-sense  to  expect  her  to  come 
back?  You  might  as  well  go  out  on  the  Highlands  at  Nev- 
ersink  and  call  to  the  Aurania  after  she  has  been  three  days 
out,  and  expect  her  to  return,  as  to  call  back  an  opportunity 


1 62  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

to  heaven  take  a  little  wider  excursion  than  those  who  were 
on  earth  pious,  and  I  shall  go  to  heaven  vid  Gehenna  and 
vid  Sheol."  Another  chance  in  the  next  world  means  free 
license  and  wild  abandonment  in  this. 

Suppose  you  were  a  party  in  an  important  case  at  law, 
and  you  knew  from  consultation  with  judges  and  attorneys 
that  it  would  be  tried  twice,  and  the  first  trial  would  be  of 
Httle  importance,  but  that  the  second  would  decide  every- 
thing, for  which  trial  would  you  make  the  most  preparation, 
for  which  retain  the  ablest  attorneys,  for  which  be  most 
anxious  about  the  attendance  of  witnesses?  You  would  put 
all  the  stress  upon  the  second  trial,  all  the  anxiety,  all  the 
expenditure,  saying,  "  The  first  is  nothing,  the  last  is  every- 
thing." Give  the  race  assurance  of  a  second  and  more  im- 
portant trial  in  the  subsequent  life,  and  all  the  preparation 
for  eternity  would  be  post-mortem,  post- funeral,  post-sepul- 
chral, and  the  world  with  one  jerk  be  pitched  off  into  im- 
piety and  godlessness. 

AN   infidel's   premonition. 

Voltaire,  while  rejecting  the  whole  Bible,  did  not  seem 
to  be  so  very  well  persuaded  of  the  non-existence  of  perdi- 
tion, for  when  his  friend  wrote  to  him,  "  I  have  found  out 
for  sure  that  there  is  no  hell,  Voltaire  replied,  "  I  congratu- 
late you  ;  I  am  7iot  so  fortunate  as  you  are." 

SUFFICIENT  CHANCES  IN  LIFE. 

Furthermore,  let  me  ask  why  a  chance  should  be  given 
in  the  next  world  if  we  have  refused  innumerable  chances  in 
this  ?  Suppose  you  give  a  banquet,  and  you  invite  a  vast 
number  of  friends,  but  one  man  declines  to  come,  or  treats 
your  invitation  with  indifference.  You  in  the  course  of 
twenty  years  give  twenty  banquets,  and  the  same  man  is  in- 
vited to  thetn  all,  and  treats  them  all  in  the  same  obnoxious 
way.  After  a  while  you  remove  to  another  house,  larger 
and  better,  and  )'ou  again   invite  your  friends,  but  send  no 


THEORY  OF  A    POSTHUMOUS   OPPORTUNITY.        1 63 

invitation  to  the  man  who  dechned  or  neglected  the  other 
invitations.  Are  you  to  blame?  Has  he  a  right  to  expect 
to  be  invited  after  all  the  indignities  he  has  done  you  ?  God 
in  this  world  has  invited  us  all  to  the  banquet  of  His  grace. 
He  invited  us  by  His  Providence  and  His  Spirit  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  days  of  every  year  since  we  knew  our 
right  hand  from  our  left.  If  we  declined  it  every  time,  or 
treated  the  invitation  with  indifference,  and  gave  twenty  or 
forty  or  fifty  years  of  indignity  on  our  part  toward  the  Ban- 
queter, and  at  last  He  spreads  the  banquet  in  a  more  luxu- 
riant and  kingly  place,  amid  the  heavenly  gardens,  have  we 
a  right  to  expect  Him  to  invite  us  again,  and  have  we  a  right 
to  blame  Him  if  He  does  not  invite  us? 

THE    GOSPEL    SHIP. 

If  twelve  gates  of  salvation  stood  open  twenty  years  or 
fifty  years  for  our  admission,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time 
they  are  closed,  can  we  complain  of  it  and  say,  "  These  gates 
ought  to  be  open  again.  Give  us  another  chance  "?  If  the 
steamer  is  to  sail  for  Hamburg,  and  we  want  to  get  to  Ger- 
many by  that  line,  and  we  read  in  every  evening  and  every 
morning  newspaper  that  it  will  sail  on  a  certain  day,  for  two 
weeks  we  have  that  advertisement  before  our  eyes,  and  then 
we  go  down  to  the  docks  fifteen  minutes  after  it  has  shoved 
off  into  the  stream  and  say  :  "  Come  back.  Give  me  another 
chance.  It  is  not  fair  to  treat  me  in  this  way.  Swing  up 
to  the  dock  again,  and  throw  out  the  planks,  and  let  me 
come  on  board."  Such  behavior  would  invite  arrest  as  a 
madman. 

And  if,  after  the  Gospel  ship  has  lain  at  anchor  before 
our  eyes  for  years  and  years  and  years,  and  all  the  benign 
voices  of  earth  and  heaven  have  urged  us  to  get  on  board, 
as  she  might  sail  away  any  moment,  and  after  a  while  she 
sails  without  us,  is  it  common-sense  to  expect  her  to  come 
back  ?  You  might  as  well  go  out  on  the  Highlands  at  Nev- 
ersink  and  call  to  the  Aurania  after  she  has  been  three  days 
out,  and  expect  her  to  return,  as  to  call  back  an  opportunity 


164  TRLMl'ET  PEALS. 

for  heaven  when  it  onee  has  sped  away.  All  heaven  offered 
us  as  a  gratuity,  and  for  a  lifetime  we  refuse  to  take  it,  and 
then  rush  on  the  bosses  of  Jehovah's  buckler  demanding  an- 
other chance.  There  ought  to  be,  there  can  be,  there  will 
be,  no  such  thing  as  posthumous  opportunity.  Thus  our 
common-sense  agrees  with  my  text — "  If  the  tree  fall  toward 
the  south  or  toward  the  north,  in  the  place'where  the  tree  fall- 
eth,  there  it  shall  be." 

You  see  that  this  idea  lifts  this  world  up  from  an  unim- 
portant way  station  to  a  platform  of  stupendous  issues,  and 
makes  all  eternity  whirl  around  this  hour.  But  one  trial  for 
which  all  the  preparation  must  be  made  in  this  world,  or 
never  made  at  all.  That  piles  up  all  the  emphases  and  all 
the  climaxes  and  all  the  destinies  into  life  here.  No  other 
chance  !  O  how  that  augments  the  value  and  importance 
of  this  chance. 


ALEXANDER  S    LIGHT. 

Alexander  with  his  army  used  to  surround  a  city,  and 
then  would  lift  a  great  light  in  token  to  the  people  that,  if 
they  surrendered  before  that  light  went  out,  all  would  be 
well  ;  but  if  once  the  light  went  out,  then  the  battering-rams 
would  swing  against  the  wall,  and  demolition  and  disaster 
would  follow.  Well,  all  we  need  to  do  for  our  present  and 
everlasting  safety  is  to  make  surrender  to  Christ,  the  King 
and  Conquerer,  surrender  of  our  hearts,  surrender  of  our 
lives,  surrender  of  everything.  And  He  keeps  a  great  light 
burning,  light  of  Gospel  invitation,  light  kindled  with  the 
wood  of  the  cross  and  flaming  up  against  the  dark  night  of 
our  sin  and  sorrow.  Surrender  while  that  great  light  con- 
tinues to  burn,  for  after  it  goes  out,  there  will  be  no  other 
opportunity  of  making  peace  with  God  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Talk  of  another  chance  !  Why,  this  is  a  su- 
pernal chance  ! 

Tell  it  to  all  points  of  the  compass.  Tell  it  to  night  and 
day.  Tell  it  to  all  earth  and  heaven.  TclT  it  to  all  centu- 
ries, all  ages,  all  millenniums,  that  we  have  such  a  magnifi- 


THEORY   OF  A    POSTHUMOUS  OPPORTUNITY.        165 

cent  chance  in  this  world  that  we  need  no  other  chance  in 
the  next. 

A    DREAM. 

I  am  in  the  burnished  Judgment  Hall  of  the  Last  Day, 
A  great  white  throne  is  lifted,  but  the  Judge  has  not  yet 
taken  it.  While  we  are  waiting  for  His  arrival  I  hear  im 
mortal  spirits  in  conversation.  "What  are  you  waiting  here 
for?"  says  a  soul  that  went  up  from  Madagascar  to  a  soul 
that  ascended  from  America.  The  latter  says  :  "  I  came 
from  America,  where  forty  years  1  heard  the  Gospel 
preached  and  Bible  read,  and  from  the  prayer  I  learned  in 
infancy  at  my  mother's  knee  until  my  last  hour  I  had 
Gospel  advantage,  but  for  some  reason  I  did  not  make  the 
Christian  choice,  and  I  am  here  waiting  for  the  Judge  to 
give  me  a  new  trial  and  another  chance."  "  Strange,"  says 
the  other  ;  "  I  had  but  one  Gospel  call  in  Madagascar,  and  I 
accepted  it,  and  I  do  not  need  another  chance." 

"  Why  are  you  here  ?"  says  one  who  on  earth  had  fee- 
blest intellect  to  one  who  had  great  brain,  and  silvery 
tongue,  and  marvelous  influence.  The  latter  responds : 
*'  Oh,  I  knew  more  than  my  fellows.  I  mastered  libraries, 
and  had  learned  titles  from  colleges,  and  my  name  was  a 
synonym  for  eloquence  and  power.  And  yet  I  neglected 
my  soul,  and  I  am  here  waiting  for  a  new  trial."  "  Strange," 
says  the  one  of  the  feeble  earthly  capacity :  "  I  knew  but 
little  of  worldly  knowledge,  but  I  knew  Christ,  and  made 
Him  my  partner,  and  I  have  no  need  of  another  chance." 

ETERNAL    PUNISHMENT. 

While  I  am  talking  to  a  young  man  about  his  soul  he 
tells  me :  "I  do  not  become  a  Christian  because  I  do  not 
believe  there  is  any  hell  at  all." 

Ah !  don't  you  ?  Do  all  the  people,  of  all  beliefs  and 
no  belief  at  all,  of  good  morals  and  bad  morals,  go  straight 
to  a  happy  heaven  ?     Do  the  holy  and   the  deC)auched  have 


1 66  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  same  destination?  At  midnight,  in  a  hallway,  the  owner 
of  a  house  and  a  burglar  meet  each  other,  and  they  both  fire, 
and  both  are  wounded,  but  the  burglar  died  in  five  minutes 
and  the  owner  of  the  house  lives  a  week  after.  Will  the 
burglar  be  at  the  gate  of  heaven  waiting  when  the  house- 
owner  comes  in  ?  Will  the  debauchee  and  the  libertine  go 
right  in  among  the  families  of  heaven?  /  wonder  if  Herod 
is  playing  on  the  banks  of  the  River  of  Life  with  the  children 
he  massacred.  I  wonder  if  Charles  Guiteau  and  John  Wilkes 
Booth  are  up  there  shooting  at  a  mark.  I  do  not  now  con- 
trovert it,  although  I  must  say  that  for  such  a  miserable 
heaven  I  have  no  admiration.  But  the  Bible  does  not  say, 
"  Believe  in  perdition  and  be  saved."  Because  all  are  saved, 
according  to  your  theory,  that  ought  not  to  keep  you  from 
loving  and  serving  Christ.  Do  not  refuse  to  come  ashore 
because  all  the  others,  according  to  your  theory,  are  going 
to  get  ashore. 

You  may  have  a  different  theory  about  chemistry,  about 
astronomy,  about  the  atmosphere,  from  that  which  others 
adopt,  but  you  are  not  therefore  hindered  from  action. 
Because  your  theory  of  light  is  different  from  others,  you  do 
not  refuse  to  open  your  eyes.  Because  your  theory  of  air  is 
different  you  do  not  refuse  to  breathe.  Because  your  theory 
about  the  stellar  system  is  different,  you  do  not  refuse  to 
acknowledge  the  North  Star.  Why  should  the  fact  that  your 
theological  theories  are  different,  hinder  you  from  acting 
upon  what  you  know  ? 


HOW    FAR   IT   IS   TO    HELL. 

"Can  you  tell  me  how  far  it  is  to  hell?"  said  a  young 
man  as,  one  Sunday  on  horseback,  he  dashed  past  a  good 
Christian  deacon.  At  the  next  turn  in  the  road  the  horse 
threw  the  scoffing  rider,  and  he  was  dead.  lie  wanted  to 
know  how  far  it  was  to  hell,  and  found  out  without  the  dea- 
con's telling  him. 

So  thou  art  mounted  on  a  swift  steed,  whose  hoofs  strike 


THEORY  OF  A   POSTHUMOUS  OPPORTUNITY.       167 

fire  from  the  pavement  as  he  dashes  past,  and  you  cry  out : 
*'  How  far  is  it  to  ruin  ?"     I  answer :  "  Near — very  near!" 

"  Perhaps  this  very  day 

Thy  last  accepted  time  may  be ; 
Oh,  should'st  thou  grieve  Him  now  away, 
Then  hope  may  never  beam  on  thee !" 

Oh,  that  my  Lord  God  would  bring  you  now  to  see  your 
sin  and  to  fly  from  it ;  and  your  duty,  and  help  you  to  do  it, 
so  that  when  the  last  great  terror  of  earth  shall  spread  its 
two  black  wings,  and  clutch  with  its  bloody  talons  for  thy 
soul,  it  cannot  hurt  thee,  for  that  thou  art  safe  in  the  warm 
dove-cot  of  a  Saviour's  mercy! 

"  Come  in  !  come  in  ! 
Eternal  glory  shalt  thou  win." 

I  am  talking  with  one  thoughtful  about  his  soul,  who  has 
lately  travelled  through  New  England  and  passed  the  night 
at  Andover.  He  says  to  me  :  "  I  cannot  believe  that  in  this 
life  the  destiny  is  irrevocably  fixed  ;  I  think  there  will  be 
another  opportunity  of  repentance  after  death."  I  say  to 
him  :  My  brother,  what  has  that  to  do  with  you  ?  Don't 
you  realize  that  the  man  who  waits  for  another  chance  after 
death  when  he  has  a  good  chance  before  death  is  a  stark 
fool  ?  Had  not  you  better  take  the  plank  that  is  thrown  to 
you  now  and  head  for  shore,  rather  than  wait  for  a  plank 
that  may  by  invisible  hands  be  thrown  to  you  after  you  are 
dead?  Do  as  you  please,  but  as  for  myself,  with  pardon  for 
all  my  sins  offered  me  now  and  all  the  joys  of  time  and  eter- 
nity offered  me  now,  I  instantly  take  them  rather  than  run 
the  risk  of  such  other  chance  as  wise  men  think  they  can 
peel  off  or  twist  out  of  a  Scripture  passage  that  has  for  all 
the  Christian  centuries  been  interpreted  another  way. 

You  admit  you  are  all  broken  up,  one  decade  of  your  life 
gone  by,  two  decades,  three  decades,  four  decades,  a  half 
century,  perhaps  three  quarters  of  a  century  gone.  The  hour- 
hand  and  the  minute-hand  of  your  clock  of  life  are  almost 


1 68  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

parallel,  and  soon  it  will  be  twelve  and  your  day  ended. 
Clear  discouraged  arc  you  ?  I  admit  it  is  a  sad  thing  to  give 
all  of  our  lives  that  arc  worth  anything  to  sin  and  the  devil, 
and  then  at  last  make  iJod  a  present  of  a  first-rate  corpse. 

From  many  a  deathbed  I  have  seen  the  hands  thrown  up 
in  deploration  something  like  this :  "  Aly  life  has  been  wasted. 
I  had  good  mental  faculties,  and  fine  social  position,  and 
great  opportunity,  but  through  worldliness  and  neglect  all 
has  gone  to  waste  save  these  few  remaining  hours.  I  now 
accept  of  Christ,  and  shall  enter  heaven  through  His  mercy 
but  alas !  alas !  that  when  I  might  have  entered  the  haven  of 
eternal  rest  with  a  full  cargo,  and  been  greeted  by  the  waving 
hands  of  a  multitude  in  whose  salvation  I  had  borne  a  blessed 
part,  I  must  confess  I  now  enter  the  harbor  of  heaven  on 
broken  pieces  of  the  ship  !'* 

A  VERY  STOUT  ROPE. 

O  man  astray,  God  help  you  !  You  know  that  sometimes 
a  rope-maker  will  take  very  small  threads  and  wind  them 
together,  until  after  a  while  they  become  ship  cable.  And  I 
am  going  to  take  some  very  small  delicate  threads  and  wind 
them  together  until  they  make  a  very  stout  rope.  I  will 
take  all  the  memories  of  the  marriage  day — a  thread  of 
laughter,  a  thread  of  light,  a  thread  of  music,  a  thread  of 
banqueting,  a  thread  of  congratulation,  and  I  twist  them 
together  and  I  have  one  strand.  Then  I  take  a  thread  of 
the  hour  of  the  first  advent  in  your  house,  a  thread  of  the 
darkness  that  preceded,  and  a  thread  of  the  light  that  fol- 
lowed;  and  a  thread  of  the  beautiful  scarf  that  little  child 
used  to  wear  when  she  bounded  out  at  eventide  to  greet  you  ; 
and  then  a  thread  of  the  beautiful  dress  in  which  you  laid 
her  away  for  the  resurrection  ;  and  then  I  twist  all  these 
threads  together,  and  I  have  another  strand.  Then  I  take 
a  thread  of  the  scarlet  robe  of  a  suffering  Christ,  and  a  thread 
of  the  white  raiment  of  your  loved  ones  before  the  throne, 
and  a  string  of  the  harp  cherubic,  and  a  string  of  the  harp 
seraphic,  and  I  twist  them  all  together,  and  I  have   a  third 


THEORY  OF  A    POSTHUMOUS  OPPORTUNITY.        169 

strand.  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  either  strand  is  enough  to  hold 
fast  a  world  !"  No  :  I  will  take  these  strands  and  I  will  twist 
them  together,  and  one  end  of  that  rope  I  will  fasten,  not 
to  the  communion  table,  for  it  shall  be  removed  ;  not  to  a 
pillar  of  the  organ,  for  that  will  crumble  in  the  ages ;  but  I 
wind  it  round  and  round  the  cross  of  a  sympathizing  Christ, 
and  having  fastened  one  end  of  the  rope  to  the  cross,  I 
throw  the  other  end  to  you.  Lay  hold  of  it !  Pull  for  your 
life !     Pull  for  heaven  ! 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Plague  of  Profanity. 

Next  to  denying  t/iat  f/iere  is  a  God  is  profaning  his  Name  ;  and 
the  zvorst  kind  of  profxfiity  is  blasphemy  or  cursing  Cod.  This  was 
*'  the  head  and  front  of  the  offending"  of  Job's  wife. — Editor. 

"  Curse  God  and  die  !"  Job  knew  right  well  that  swear- 
ing would  not  cure  one  of  the  tumors  of  his  agonized  body, 
would  not  bring  back  one  of  his  destroyed  camels,  would 
not  restore  one  of  his  dead  children.  He  knew  that  pro- 
fanity would  only  make  the  pain  more  unbearable,  and  the 
poverty  more  distressing,  and  the  bereavement  more  excru- 
ciating. But  judging  from  the  profanity  abroad  in  our  day, 
you  might  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  some  great 
advantage  to  be  reaped  from  profanity. 

Blasphemy  is  one  of  the  ten  plagues  A\hich  have  smitten 
our  great  cities.  You  hear  it  in  every  direction.  The  dray- 
man swearing  at  his  cart,  the  sewing  girl  imprecating  the 
tangled  skein,  the  accountant  cursing  the  long  line  of 
troublesome  figures.  Swearing  at  the  store,  swearing  on 
the  loft,  swearing  in  the  cellar,  swearing  on  the  street,  swear- 
ing in  the  factory.  Children  swear.  Men  swear.  Ladies 
swear  !  Swearing  from  the  rough  calling  on  the  Almighty  in 
the  low  restaurant,  clear  up  to  the  reckless  "  O  Lord !"  of  a 
glittering  drawing-room  ;  and  the  one  is  as  much  blasphemy 
as  the  other. 

It  was  no  profanity  when  James  A.  Garfield,  in  the  Wash- 
ington depot,  cried  out,  "  My  God,  what  does  this  mean?" 
But  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  triviality  and  of  the  reckless- 
ness with  which  the  name  of  God  is  sometimes  abused. 
The  whole  land  is  cursed  with  it. 

A  gentleman  coming  from  the  Far  West  sat  in  the  car 
day  after  day  behind   two  persons  who  were  indulging  in 

170 


THE  PLAGUE   OF  PROFANITY.  I7I 

profanity,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  make  a 
record  of  their  prof anitieSy  and  at  the  end  of  two  days  sev- 
eral sheets  of  paper  were  covered  with  these  imprecations, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  journey  he  handed  the  manuscript 
to  one  of  the  persons  in  front  of  him.  "  Is  it  possible,"  said 
the  man,  "  that  we  have  uttered  so  many  profanities  the  last 
few  days?"  "  It  is,"  replied  the  gentleman.  "Then,"  said 
the  man  who  had  taken  the  manuscript,  "  I  will  never  swear 
again." 

But  it  is  a  comparatively  unimportant  thing  if  a  man 
makes  record  of  our  improprieties  of  speech.  The  more 
memorable  consideration  is  that  every  oath  uttered  has  a 
record  in  the  book  of  Gocfs  renicnibrance  ! 

IS   IT   MANLY? 

That  this  habit  grows  in  the  community  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  young  people  think  it  manly  to  swear.  Little  chil- 
dren, hardly  able  to  walk  straight  on  the  street,  yet  have 
enough  distinctness  of  utterance  to  let  you  know  that  they 
are  damning  their  own  souls,  or  damning  the  souls  of  others. 

Between  sixteen  and  twenty  years  of  age  there  is  apt  to 
come  a  time  when  a  young  man  is  as  much  ashamed  of  not 
being  able  to  swear  gracefully  as  he  is  of  the  dizziness  of  his 
first  cigar.  There  are  young  men  who  walk  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  imprecation — oaths  on  their  lips,  under  their 
tongues,  nesting  in  their  shock  of  hair.  They  abstain  from 
it  in  the  elegant  drawing-room,  but  the  street  and  the  club- 
house ring  with  their  profanities.  They  have  no  regard  for 
God,  although  they  have  great  respect  for  the  ladies  !  My 
young  brother,  there  is  no  manliness  in  that.  The  most  un- 
gentlemanly  thing  a  man  can  do  is  to  swear. 

Fathers  foster  this  great  crime.  There  are  parents  who 
are  very  cautious  not  to  swear  in  the  presence  of  their  chil- 
dren ;  in  a  moment  of  sudden  anger,  they  look  around  to 
see  if  the  children  are  present,  then  they  indulge  in  this 
habit.  Do  you  not  know,  O  father,  that  your  child  is  aware 
of  the  fact  that  you  swear?     He  overheard  you  in  the  next 


172  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

room,  or  some  one  has  informed  him  of  your  habit.  He  is 
practising  now. 

The  crime  is  also  fostered  by  master-mechanics,  boss-car- 
penters, tliose  who  are  at  the  head  of  men  in  hat-factories, 
and  in  dock-yards,  and  at  the  head  of  great  business  estab- 
Hshments.  When  you  go  down  to  look  at  the  work  of  the 
scaffolding,  and  you  find  it  is  not  done  right,  what  do  you 
say  ?  Employers  swear,  and  that  makes  so  many  employes 
swear. 

The  habit  also  comes  from  infirmity  of  temper.  There 
are  a  good  many  people  who,  when  they  are  at  peace,  have 
righteousness  of  speech,  but  Avhen  angered  they  blaze  with 
imprecation.  I  knew  of  a  man  who  excused  himself  for 
the  habit,  saying  :  "  I  only  swear  once  in  a  great  while.  I 
must  do  that  just  to  clear  myself  out." 

The  habit  comes  also  from  the  profuse  use  of  bywords. 
The  transition  from  a  byword  to  imprecation  and  profanity  is 
not  a  very  large  transition.  It  is  "  my  stars  !"  and  "  mercy 
on  me  !"  and  "  good  gracious !"  and  "  by  George  !"  and  by 
Jove !"  and  you  go  on  with  that  a  little  while,  and  then  you 
swear.  The  habit  is  creeping  np  into  the  highest  styles  of 
society.  Women  have  no  patience  with  flat  and  unvarnished 
profanity.  They  will  order  a  man  out  of  the  parlor  for  in- 
dulging in  blasphemy,  and  yet  you  will  sometimes  find  them 
with  fairy  fan  to  the  lip,  and  under  chandeliers  which  bring  no 
blush  to  their  cheek,  taking  on  their  lips  the  holiest  of  names 
in  utter  triviality. 

Why  my  friends,  the  English  language  is  comprehensive 
and  capable  of  expressing  all  shades  of  feeling  and  every 
degree  of  energy,  without  any  profanity — the  God-honored 
Anglo-Saxon  in  which  Milton  sang,  and  John  Bunyan 
dreamed. 

This  country  is  pre-eminent  for  blasphemy.  A  man 
travelling  in  Russia  was  supposed  to  be  a  clergyman.  "  Why 
do  you  take  me  to  be  a  clergyman  ?"  said  the  man.  "  Oh," 
said  the  Russian,  "  all  other  Americans  swear.  Does  it  not 
seem  to  you  that  the  abominations  of  this  earth  have  gone 


THE  PLAGUE   OF  PROFANITY.  1/3 

far  enough  ?     Were  there  ever  before  so  many  fists  lifted 
toward  God,  teUing  Him  to  come  on  if  He  dare? 


BLASPHEMY  ABROAD! 

What  towering  profanity !  Would  it  be  possible  for 
anyone  to  calculate  the  numbers  of  times  that  the  name  of 
the  Almighty  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ  are  every  day  taken 
irreverently  on  the  lips  ?  So  common  has  blasphemy  be- 
come, that  the  public  mind  and  public  ear  have  got  used  to 
it,  and  a  blasphemer  goes  up  and  down  this  country  in  his 
lectures  defying  the  plain  law  against  blasphemy,  and  there 
is  not  a  mayor  in  America  that  has  backbone  enough  to  in- 
terfere with  him  save  one,  and  that,  the  mayor  of  Toronto. 
Profane  swearing  is  as  much  forbidden  by  the  law  as  theft 
or  arson  or  murder,  yet  who  executes  it  ?  Profanity  is  worse 
than  theft  or  arson  or  murder,  for  these  crimes  are  attacks 
on  humanity — that  is,  an  attack  on  God. 

When  the  Mohammedan  finds  a  piece  of  paper  he  cannot 
read,  he  puts  it  aside  very  cautiously  for  fear  the  name  of 
God  may  be  on  it.  That  is  one  extreme.  We  go  to  the 
other. 

The  crime  rolls  on,  up  through  parlors,  up  through  chan- 
deliers with  lights  all  ablaze,  and  through  the  pictured  cor- 
ridors of  club-rooms,  etc.,  out  through  busy  exchanges 
where  oath  meets  oath,  and  down  through  all  the  haunts  of 
sin,  mingling  with  the  rattling  dice  and  cracking  billiard- 
balls,  and  the  laughter  of  her  who  hath  forgotten  the  cove- 
nant of  her  God ;  and  round  the  city,  and  round  the  conti- 
nent, and  round  the  earth  a  seething,  boiling  surge  flings  its 
hot  spray  into  the  face  of  a  long-suffering  God.  And  the 
ship-captain  damns  his  crew,  and  the  merchant  damns  his 
clerks,  and  the  master-builder  damns  his  men,  and  the  hack- 
driver  damns  his  horse ;  and  the  traveller  damns  the  stone 
that  bruises  his  foot,  or  the  mud  that  soils  his  shoes,  or  the 
defective  time-piece  that  gets  him  too  late  to  the  rail  train. 
I  arraign  profane  swearing  and  blasphemy,  two  names  for 
the  same  thing,  as  being  one  of  the  gigantic  crimes  of  this 


174  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

l.'incl.  Do  you  not  know  also  that  the  trivial  use  of  God's 
name  results  in  perjury? 

Make  the  name  of  God  a  foot-ball  in  the  community,  and 
it  has  no  power  when  in  court-room  and  in  legislative  assem- 
bly it  is  employed  in  solemn  adjuration.  See  the  way  some- 
times they  administer  the  oath  :  "  S'hclp  you  God — kiss  the 
book!"  Why  is  it  that  so  often  jurors  render  unaccounta- 
ble verdicts,  and  judges  give  unaccountable  charges,  and 
useless  railroad  schemes  pass  in  our  State  capitals,  and  there 
are  most  unjust  changes  made  in  tariffs — tariiT  lifted  from 
one  thing  and  put  upon  another?  May  not  this  be  the 
why? 

May  not  this  also  be  the  reason  why  smuggling,  which  is 
always  a  violation  of  the  oath,  becomes  in  some  circles  a 
grand  joke  ?  You  say  to  a  man  :  "  How  is  it  possible  for  you 
to  sell  these  goods  so  very  cheap?  I  can't  understand  it." 
"  Ah  !"  he  replies,  with  a  twinkle  of  the  eye,  "  the  Custom 
House  tariff  of  these  goods  isn't  as  much  as  it  might  be." 

WHAT  IS  THE   CURE? 

It  is  a  mighty  habit.  Men  have  struggled  for  years  to 
get  over  it.  An  aged  man  was  in  the  delirium  of  a  fever. 
He  had  for  many  years  lived  a  most  upright  life,  and  was 
honored  in  all  the  community  ;  but  when  he  came  into  the 
delirium  of  this  fever  he  was  full  of  imprecation  and  pro- 
fanit}',  and  they  could  not  understand  it.  After  he  came 
to  his  right  reason  he  explained  it.  He  said,  "  When  I  was 
a  young  man  I  was  very  profane.  I  conquered  the  habit, 
but  I  had  to  struggle  all  through  life.  You  haven't  for 
forty  years  heard  me  say  an  improper  word,  but  it  has  been 
an  awful  struggle.      Tlie  tiger  is  chained,  but  he  is  alive  yet." 

If  you  would  get  rid  of  this  habit,  I  want  you,  my 
friends,  to  dwell  upon  the  uselessness  of  it.  Did  a  volley  of 
oaths  ever  start  a  heavy  load?  Did  they  ever  extirpate 
meanness  from  a  customer?  Did  they  ever  collect  a  bad 
debt?  Did  they  ever  cure  a  toothache?  Did  they  ever 
stop  the  twinge   of  the  rheumatism  ?     Did   they   ever  help 


THE  PLAGUE    OF  PROFANITY.  1/5 

you  forward  one  step  in  the  right  direction  ?  Come  now, 
tell  nae,  ye  who  have  had  the  most  experience  in  this  habit, 
how  much  have  you  made  out  of  it?  Five  thousand  dollars 
in  all  your  life?  No.  One  thousand?  No.  One  hundred  ? 
No.  One  dollar?  No.  One  cent?  No.  If  the  habit  be 
so  utterly  useless,  away  with  it. 

Think  too  how  the  habit  grows.  You  start  with  a  small 
oath,  you  will  come  to  the  large  oath.  I  saw  a  man  die 
with  an  oath  between  his  teeth.  Voltaire  only  gradually 
came  to  his  tremendous  imprecation ;  but  the  habit  grew  on 
him  until  in  the  last  moment,  supposing  Christ  stood  at  the 
bed,  he  exclaimed,  "  Crush  the  wretch  !     Crush  the  wretch  !" 

Remember  also,  for  the  cure  of  this  habit,  that  it  arouses 
God's  indignation.  Dionysius  used  to  have  a  cave  in  which 
his  culprits  were  incarcerated,  and  he  listened  at  the  top  of 
that  cave  and  he  could  hear  every  groan,  he  could  hear 
every  sigh,  and  he  could  hear  every  whisper  of  those  who 
were  imprisoned.  He  was  a  tyrant.  God  is  not  a  tyrant ; 
but  He  bends  over  this  world  and  He  hears  everything — 
every  voice  of  praise — every  voice  of  imprecation.  He  hears 
it  all.  The  oaths  seem  to  die  on  the  air,  but  they  have 
eternal  echo.  They  come  back  from  the  ages  to  come. 
Listen  !  listen  !  God  very  often  shows  what  He  thinks,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  fatality  is  hushed  up.  Families  keep 
them  still  to  avoid  the  horrible  conspicuity.  Physicians 
suppress  them  through  professional  confidence.  It  is  a  very, 
very,  very  long  roll  that  contains  the  names  of  those  who 
died  with  blasphemies  on  their  lips. 

A  few  summers  ago,  among  the  Adirondacks,  I  met  the 
funeral  procession  of  a  man  who,  two  days  before,  had  fal- 
len under  a  flash  of  lightning,  while  boasting,  after  a  Sunday 
of  work  in  the  fields,  that  he  had  cheated  God  out  of  one 
day  anyhow,  and  the  man  who  worked  with  him  on  the 
same  Sabbath  is  still  living,  but  a  helpless  invalid,  under  the 
same  flash. 


1/6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


INSTANCES  OF  AWFUL   PUNISHMENT. 

There  is  not  a  sin  in  all  the  catalogue  that  is  so  often 
peremptorily  and  suddenly  punished  in  this  world  as  the  sin 
of  j)rofanity.  At  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  just  before  I  went 
there  as  a  student,  this  occurrence  took  place  in  front  of  the 
college.  On  the  rail-track  a  man  had  uttered  a  horrid  oath. 
He  saw  not  that  the  rail-train  was  coming.  The  locomotive 
struck  him  and  instantly  dashed  his  life  out.  No  mystery 
about  it.  He  cursed  God  and  died.  In  a  cemetery  in  Sul- 
livan County,  in  this  State,  are  eight  headstones  in  a  line, 
and  all  alike,  and  these  arc  the  facts:  In  1861  diphtheria 
raged  in  the  village,  and  a  physician  was  remarkably  suc- 
cessful in  curing  his  patients.  So  confident  did  he  become 
that  he  boasted  that  no  case  of  diphtheria  could  stand  before 
him,  and  finally  defied  Almighty  God  to  produce  a  case  of 
diphtheria  that  he  could  not  cure.  His  youngest  child  soon 
after  took  the  disease  and  died,  and  one  child  after  another, 
until  all  the  eight  had  died  of  diphtheria.  The  blasphemer 
challenged  Almighty  God,  and  God  accepted  the  challenge. 

But  I  come  later  down  and  give  you  a  fact  that  is  proved 
by  scores  of  witnesses.  In  August  of  1886  a  man  got  pro- 
voked at  the  continued  drought  and  the  ruin  of  his  crops, 
and  in  the  presence  of  his  neighbors  lie  cursed  God,  saying 
that  he  would  cut  His  heart  out  if  He  would  come,  calling: 
Him  a  liar  and  a  coward,  and  flashing  a  knife.  And  while 
he  was  speaking  his  lower  jaw  dropped,  smoke  issued  from 
mouth  and  nostrils,  and  the  heal  of  his  body  was  so  intense 
it  drove  back  those  who  would  come  near.  Scores  of  peo- 
ple visited  the  scene  and  saw  the  blasphemer  in  awful  pro- 
cess of  expiring. 

At  Catskill,  N.  Y.,  a  group  of  men  stood  in  a  blacksmith's 
shop  during  a  violent  thunder-storm.  There  came  a  crash 
of  thunder  and  some  of  the  men  trembled.  One  man  said : 
"  Why,  I  don't  see  what  you  are  afraid  of.  I  am  not  afraid 
to  go  out  in  front  of  the  shop  and  defy  the  Almighty.  I 
am  not  afraid  of  the  lijjhtnincr."     And   he  laid   a  wacrer  on 


THE  PLAGUE   OF  PROFANITY.  I J  7 

the  subject,  and  he  went  out,  and  he  shook  his  fist  at  the 
heavens,  crying,  "  Strike,  if  you  dare  T'  and  instantly  he  fell 
under  a  bolt.  What  destroyed  him  ?  Any  mystery  about 
it?     Oh,  no.     He  cursed  God  and  died. 

Years  ago,  in  a  Pittsburgh  prison,  two  men  were  talking 
about  the  Bible  and  Christianity,  and  one  of  them,  Thomp- 
son by  name,  applied  to  Jesus  Christ  a  very  low  and  vil- 
lainous epithet,  and  as  he  was  uttering  it,  he  fell.  A  physi- 
cian was  called,  but  no  help  could  be  given.  After  a  day 
lying  with  distended  pupils  and  palsied  tongue,  he  passed 
out  of  this  world. 

On  the  road  from  Margate  to  Ramsgate,  England,  you 
may  find  a  rough  monument  with  the  inscription,  "  A  boy 
was  struck  dead  here,  while  in  the  act  of  swearing." 

In  Scotland  a  club  assembled  every  week  for  purposes 
of  wickedness,  and  there  was  a  competition  as  to  which  could 
use  the  most  horrid  oath,  and  the  man  who  succeeded  was 
to  be  president  of  the  club.  The  competition  went  on.  A 
man  uttered  an  oath  which  confounded  all  his  comrades, 
and  he  was  made  president  of  the  club.  His  tongue  began 
to  swell,  and  it  protruded  from  the  mouth,  and  he  could  not 
draw  it  in,  and  he  died,  and  the  physicians  said :  "  This  is 
the  strangest  thing  we  ever  saw  :  we  never  saw  any  account 
in  the  books  like  unto  it :  we  can't  understand  it."  I  un- 
derstand it.     He  cursed  God  and  died. 

Oh,  my  brother,  God  will  not  allow  this  sin  to  go  unpun- 
ished. There  are  styles  of  writing  with  manifold  sheets,  so 
that  a  man  writing  on  one  leaf  writes  clear  through  ten,  fif- 
teen, or  twenty  sheets,  and  so  every  profanity  we  utter  goes 
right  down  through  the  leaves  of  the  book  of  God's  remem- 
brance. 


CHAPTER   VII. 
Lying,  Dishonesty,  and  Fraud. 

"A  certain  man  named  Ananias,  with  Sapphira  his  wife,  sold  a 
possession;  ....  and  the  young  men  came  in,  and  found  her  dead, 
and  carrying  her  forth,  buried  her  by  her  husband." — Acts  5  :  i-ic, 

A  WELL-MATCHED  pair,  alike  in  ambition  and  in  falsehood, 
Ananias  and  Sapphira.  They  wanted  a  reputation  for  great 
beneficence,  and  they  sold  all  their  property,  pretending  to 
put  the  entire  proceeds  in  the  chanty  fund  while  they  put 
much  of  it  in  their  own  pocket.  There  was  no  necessity 
that  they  give  all  their  property  away,  but  they  wanted  the 
reputation  of  so  doing.  Ananias  first  lied  about  it  and 
dropped  down  dead.  Then  Sapphira  lied  about  it  and  she 
dropped  down  dead.  The  two  fatalities  a  warning  to  all 
ages  of  the  danger  of  sacrificing  the  truth. 

There  are  thousands  of  ways  of  telling  a  lie.  A  man's 
whole  life  may  be  a  falsehood,  and  yet  never  with  his  lips 
may  he  falsify  once.  There  is  a  way  of  uttering  falsehood 
by  look,  by  manner  as  well  as  by  lip.  There  are  persons 
who  are  guilty  of  dishonesty  of  speech  and  then  afterward 
say  "  may  be  ;"  call  it  a  white  lie,  when  no  lie  is  that  color. 
The  whitest  lie  ever  told  was  as  black  as  perdition.  There 
are  those  so  given  to  dishonesty  of  speech  that  the}-  do 
not  know  when  they  are  lying. 

With  some  it  is  an  acquired  sin,  and  with  others  it  is  a 
natural  infirmity.  There  are  those  whom  you  will  recognize 
as  born  liars.  Their  whole  life,  from  cradle  to  grave,  is  filled 
up  with  vice  of  speech.  Misrepresentation  and  prevarication 
are  as  natural  to  them  as  the  infantile  diseases,  and  are  a 
's,ox\.  oi  moral  croup  or  spiritual  scarlatina.  Then  there  are 
those  who  in  after  life  have  opportunities  of  developing  this 

178 


LYING,  DISIIOXESTY,  AA'D   FRAUD.  I'JC) 

evil,  and  they  go   from   deception  to  deception,  and  from 
class  to  class,  until  they  are  regularly  graduated  liars. 

At  times  the  air  in  our  cities  is  filled  with  falsehood,  and 
lies  cluster  around  the  mechanic's  hammer,  blossom  on  the 
merchant's  yardstick,  and  sometimes  sit  in  the  door  of 
churches.  They  are  called  by  some,  fabrication,  and  they 
are  called  by  some,  fiction.  You  might  call  them  subterfuge 
or  deceit,  or  romance,  or  fable,  or  misrepresentation,  or  delu- 
sion ;  but  as  I  know  nothing  to  be  gained  by  covering  up  a 
God-defying  sin  with  a  lexicographer's  blanket,  I  shall  call 
them  in  plainest  vernacular,  lies.  They  may  be  divided  into 
agricultural,  commercial,  mechanical,  and  social. 

AGRICULTURAL   FALSEHOODS. 

There  is  something  in  the  presence  of  natural  objects 
that  has  a  tendency  to  make  one  pure.  The  trees  never 
issue  false  stock.  The  wheat  fields  are  always  honest.  Rye 
and  oats  never  move  out  in  the  night,  not  paying  for  the 
place  they  occupy.  Corn  shocks  never  make  false  assign- 
ment. Mountain  brooks  are  always  current.  The  gold  of 
the  wheat  fields  is  never  counterfeit.  But  while  the  ten- 
dency of  agricultural  life  is  to  make  one  honest,  honesty  is 
not  the  characteristic  of  all  who  come  to  the  city  markets 
from  the  country  districts.  You  hear  the  creaking  of  the  dis- 
honest farm-wagon  in  almost  every  street  of  our  great  cities, 
a  farm-wagon  in  which  there  is  not  one  honest  spoke  or  one 
truthful  rivet  from  tongue  to  tail-board.  Again  and  again 
has  domestic  economy  in  our  great  cities  foundered  on  the 
farmer's  firkin.  When  New  York  and  Brooklyn  and  Cincin- 
nati and  Boston  sit  down  and  weep  over  their  sins,  West- 
chester and  Long  Island  counties  and  all  the  country  dis- 
tricts ought  to  sit  down  and  weep  over  theirs. 

The  tendency  in  all  rural  districts  is  to  suppose  that  sins 
and  transgressions  cluster  in  our  great  cities  ;  but  citizens 
and  merchants  long  ago  learned  that  it  is  not  safe  to  calcu- 
late from  the  character  of  the  apples  on  the  top  of  the 
farmer's  barrel  what  is  the  character  of  the  apples  all  the 


i8o  TRUMrr/r  i'kai.s. 

way  down  toward  the  bottom.  Many  of  our  citizens  and 
merchants  have  learned  that  it  is  always  safe  to  sec  the 
farmer  measure  the  barrel  of  beets.  Milk  cans  arc  not  always 
honest. 


COMMERCIAL  LIES. 

There  arc  those  who  apologize  for  deviations  from  the 
right  and  for  practical  deception  by  saying  it  is  commercial 
custom.  In  other  words,  a  lie  by  multiplication  becomes  a 
virtue. 

There  are  large  fortunes  gathered  in  which  there  is  not 
one  drop  of  the  sweat  of  unrequited  toil,  and  not  one  spark 
of  bad  temper  flashes  from  the  bronze  bracket,  and  there  is 
not  one  (ir()[)  of  needlewoman's  heart's  blood  on  the  crimson 
plush  ;  while  there  arc  other  fortunes  about  which  it  may  be 
said  that  on  every  door-knob  and  on  every  figure  of  the  car- 
pet, and  on  every  wall  there  is  the  mark  of  dishonor.  What 
if  the  hand  wrung  by  toil  and  blistered  until  the  skin  comes 
off  should  be  pl.iced  on  the  exquisite  wall-paper,  leaving  its 
mark  of  blood — four  fingers  and  a  thumb  ;  or,  if  in  the  night 
the  man  should  be  aroused  from  his  slumber  again  and  again 
by  his  own  conscience,  getting  himself  up  on  elbow  and  cry- 
ing out  into  the  darkness,  "Who  is  there?" 

You  and  I  know  that  there  are  in  commercial  life  those 
who  are  guilty  of  great  dishonesties  of  speech.  A  merchant 
says:  "I  am  selling  these  goods  at  less  than  cost."  Is  he 
getting  for  those  goods  a  price  inferior  to  that  which  he  paid 
for  them  ?  Then  he  has  spoken  the  truth.  Is  he  getting 
more?  Then  he  lies.  A  merchant  says:  "I  paid  $25  for 
this  article."  Is  that  the  price  he  paid  for  it  ?  All  right. 
But  suppose  he  paid  for  it  $23  instead  of  $25  ?  Then  he 
lies. 

A  man  unrolls  ui)on  the  counter  a  bale  of  handkerchiefs. 
The  customer  says:  "Are  these  all  silk?"  "Yes."  "No 
cotton  in  them  ?"  "  No  cotton  in  them."  Arc  those  hand- 
kerchiefs all  silk?  Then  the  miTchant  told  the  truth.  Is 
there  an}'  cotton  in  them?     Then  he  lied.     Moreoxer,  he  de- 


LYING,  DISIIOXESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  l8l 

frauds  himself,  for  this  customer  coming  in  from  Hempstead, 
or  Yonkers,  or  Newark,  will  after  a  while  find  out  that  he 
has  been  defrauded,  and  the  next  time  he  comes  to  town 
and  goes  shopping,  he  will  look  up  at  that  sign  and  say: 
"  No,  I  wont  go  there  ;  that's  the  place  where  I  got  those 
handkerchiefs."  First,  the  merchant  insulted  God,  and  sec- 
ondly, he  picked  his  own  pocket. 

Who  would  take  the  responsibility  of  saying  how  many 
falsehoods  were  yesterday  told  by  hardware  men,  and  cloth- 
iers, and  lumbermen,  and  tobacconists,  and  jewellers,  and 
importers,  and  shippers,  and  dealers  in  furniture,  and  dealers 
in  coal,  and  dealers  in  groceries?  Lies  about  buckles,  about 
saddles,  about  harness,  about  shoes,  about  hats,  about  coats, 
about  shovels,  about  tongs,  about  forks,  about  chairs,  about 
sofas,  about  horses,  about  lands,  about  everything. 

BOTH  SIDES  THE  COUNTER. 

But  there  are  just  as  many  falsehoods  before  the  counter 
as  there  are  behind  the  counter.  A  customer  comes  in  and 
asks  :  "  How  much  is  this  article?"  "It  is  five  dollars."  "I 
can  get  that  for  four  somewhere  else."  Can  he  get  it  for 
four  somewhere  else,  or  did  he  say  that  just  for  the  purpose 
of  getting  it  cheap  by  depreciating  the  value  of  the  goods  ? 
If  so,  he  lied.  There  are  just  as  many  falsehoods  before  the 
counter  as  there  are  behind  the  counter. 

MECHANICAL   LIES. 

Some  mechanics  say  they  will  have  the  job  done  in  ten 
days ;  they  do  not  get  it  done  before  thirty.  And  then 
when  a  man  becomes  irritated  and  will  not  stand  it  any 
longer,  then  they  go  and  work  for  him  a  day  or  two  and 
keep  the  job  along  ;  and  then  some  one  else  gets  irritated 
and  outraged  and  they  go  and  work  for  that  man  and  get 
him  pacified,  and  then  they  go  somewhere  else.  I  believe 
they  call  that  "  nursing  the  job  I" 

Ah,  my  friends,  how  much   dishonor  such  men  would 


1 82  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

save  their  souls  if  they  would  promise  to  do  only  that  which 
they  know  they  can  do.  "  O  I"  they  say,  "  it's  of  no  impor- 
tance ;  everybody  expects  to  be  deceived  and  disappointed." 
There  is  a  voice  of  thunder  sounding  among  the  saws  and 
the  hammers  and  the  shears  saying :  "  All  liars  shall  have 
their  place  in  the  lake  that  burns  with  fire  and  brimstone." 

SOCIAL   LIES. 

How  much  of  society  is  insincere.  You  hardly  know 
what  to  believe.  They  send  their  regards ;  you  do  not  ex- 
actly know  whether  it  is  an  expression  of  the  heart,  or  an 
external  civility.  They  ask  you  to  come  to  their  house  ;  you 
hardly  know  whether  they  really  want  you  to  come.  We 
are  all  accustomed  to  take  a  discount  off  what  we  hear. 

"  Not  at  home  "  very  often  means  too  lazy  to  dress.  I 
read  of  a  lady  who  said  she  had  told  Jicr  last  fashionable  lie. 
There  was  a  knock  at  her  door  and  she  sent  word  down, 
"  Not  at  home."  That  night  her  husband  said  to  her : 
Mrs.  So-and-so  is  dead."  "Is  it  possible?"  she  said.  "Yes, 
and  she  died  in  great  anguish  of  mind ;  she  wanted  to  see 
you  so  very  much  ;  she  had  something  very  important  to  dis- 
close to  you  in  her  last  hour,  and  she  sent  three  times  to-day, 
but  found  you  absent  every  time."  Then  this  woman  be- 
thought herself  that  she  had  had  a  bargain  with  her  neighbor 
that  when  the  long-protracted  sickness  was  about  to  come  to 
an  end,  she  would  appear  at  her  bedside  and  take  the  secret 
that  was  to  be  disclosed.  And  she  had  said  she  was  "  Not 
at  home !" 

Social  life  is  struck  through  with  insincerity.  Some  apolo- 
gize for  the  fact  that  the  furnace  is  out;  they  have  not  had 
any  fire  in  it  all  winter.  They  apologize  for  the  fare  on  their 
table :  they  never  live  any  better.  They  decry  their  most 
luxuriant  entertainment  to  win  a  shower  of  api)roval  from 
you.  They  point  at  a  picture  on  the  wall  as  a  work  of  one 
of  the  old  masters.  They  say  it  is  an  heirloom  in  the  family. 
It  hung  on  the  wall  of  a  castle.  A  duke  gave  it  to  their 
grandfather.     People  that  will  lie  about  nothing  else  will  lie 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  I83 

about  a  picture.  On  small  income  we  want  the  world  to  be- 
lieve we  are  affluent,  and  society  to-day  is  struck  through 
with  cheat  and  counterfeit  and  sham. 

Society  is  so  utterly  askew  in  this  matter  that  you  seldom 
find  a  seller  asking  the  price  that  he  expects  to  get ;  he  puts 
on  a  higher  value  than  he  proposes  to  receive,  knowing  that 
he  will  have  to  drop.  And  if  he  wants  fifty,  he  asks  seventy- 
five.  And  if  he  wants  two  thousand,  he  asks  twenty-five 
hundred.  To  meet  this  the  buyer  says,  "  The  fabric  is  de- 
fective ;  the  style  of  goods  is  poor ;  I  can  get  elsewhere  a 
better  article  at  a  smaller  price.  It  is  out  of  fashion  ;  it  is 
damaged  ;  it  will  fade  ;  it  will  not  wear  well."  After  awhile 
the  merchant,  from  over-persuasion  or  from  desire  to  dispose 
of  that  particular  stock  of  goods,  says:  "Well,  take  it  at 
your  own  price,"  and  the  purchaser  goes  home  with  a  light 
step,  and  calls  into  his  private  office  his  confidential  friends, 
and  chuckles  while  he  tells  how  that  for  half  price  he  got  the 
goods.     In  other  words,  he  lies,  and  is  proud  of  it. 

SHOPPING   LIES. 

Thousands  of  years  ago  Solomon  discovered  the  ten- 
dency of  buyers  to  depreciate  goods.  "  It  is  naught,  saith 
the  buyer :  but  when  he  is  gone  his  way,  then  he  boasteth." 
(Proverbs  20 :  14.)  It  may  seem  to  the  world  a  sharp  bar- 
gain, but  the  recording  angel  wrote  down  in  the  ponderous 
tomes  of  eternity :  "  Mr.  So-and-so,  doing  business  on  Fulton 
Street,  or  Atlantic  Street,  or  Broadway,  or  Chestnut  Street, 
or  State  Street,  or  Mrs.  So-and-so,  keeping  house  on  the 
Heights,  or  on  the  Hill,  or  on  Beacon  Street,  or  on  Ritten- 
house  Square,  told  one  lie!'  And  when  people  tell  me  at 
what  a  ruinously  low  price  they  purchased  an  article,  it  gives 
me  more  dismay  than  satisfaction.  I  know  it  means  the 
bankruptcy  and  defalcation  of  men  in  many  departments. 
The  men  who  toil  with  the  brain  need  full  as  much  sym- 
pathy as  those  who  toil  with  the  hand.  All  business  life  is 
struck  through  with  suspicion,  and  panics  are  the  result  of 
want  of  confidence. 


1 84  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

May  God  extirpate  from  society  all  social  lies  and  make 
every  man  to  speak  the  truth  of  his  neighbor.  My  friends, 
let  us  make  our  life  correspond  to  what  we  are.  Let  us 
banish  all  deception  from  our  behavior.  Let  us  remember 
that  the  time  comes  when  God  will  demonstrate  before  an 
assembled  universe  just  what  we  are.  The  secret  will  come 
out.  We  may  hide  it  while  we  live,  but  we  cannot  hide  it 
when  we  die. 

"  O !  "  says  some  one,  "  the  deception  that  I  practice  is 
so  small  it  don't  amount  to  anything."  Ah  !  my  friends,  it 
does  amount  to  a  great  deal.  You  say,  "  When  I  deceive  it 
is  only  about  a  case  of  needles,  or  a  box  of  buttons,  or  a  row 
of  pins."  But  the  article  may  be  so  small  you  can  put  it  in 
your  vest  pocket,  yet  the  sin  is  as  big  as  the  pyramids,  and 
the  echo  of  your  dishonor  will  reverberate  through  the 
mountains  of  eternity.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  small  sin. 
They  are  all  vast  and  stupendous,  because  they  will  all  have 
to  come  under  inspection  in  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

FRAUD   AND   DISHONESTY. 

No  man  knows  what  he  will  do  until  he  is  tempted. 
There  are  thousands  of  men  who  have  kept  their  integrity 
merely  because  they  never  have  been  tested.  A  man  was 
elected  treasurer  of  the  State  of  Maine  some  years  ago.  He 
was  distinguished  for  his  honesty,  usefulness  and  uprightness, 
but  before  one  year  had  passed  he  had  taken  of  the  public 
funds  for  his  own  private  use,  and  was  hurled  out  of  office  in 
disgrace.  Distinguished  for  virtue  before.  Distinguished  for 
crime  after.  You  can  call  over  the  names  of  men  just  like 
that,  in  whose  honesty  you  had  complete  confidence,  but 
placed  in  certain  crises  of  temptation  they  went  overboard. 

Never  so  man}-  temptations  to  scoundrelism  as  now.  Not 
a  law  on  the  statute-book  but  has  some  back  door  through 
which  a  miscreant  can  escape.  Ah  I  how  many  deceptions 
in  the  fabric  of  goods ;  so  much  plundering  in  commercial 
life,  that  if  a  man  talk  about  living  a  life  of  complete  com- 
mercial accurac}'  there  are  those  who  ascribe  it  to  greenness 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  185 

and  lack  of  tact  More  need  of  honesty  now  than  ever  before, 
tried  honesty,  complete  honesty,  more  than  in  those  times 
when  business  was  a  plain  affair,  and  woollens  were  woollens 
and  silks  were  silks  and  men  were  men. 

How  many  men  do  you  suppose  there  are  in  commer- 
cial life  who  could  say  truthfully,  "In  all  the  sales  I  have 
ever  made  I  have  never  overstated  the  value  of  goods  ;  in  all 
the  sales  I  have  ever  made  I  have  never  covered  up  an  im- 
perfection in  the  fabric  ;  of  all  the  thousands  of  dollars  I  have 
ever  made  I  have  not  taken  one  dishonest  farthing"? 

I  wish  that  the  words  of  George  Peabody,  uttered  in  the 
hearing  of  the  people  of  his  native  town — Danvers,  Massa- 
chusetts— I  wish  that  those  words  could  be  uttered  in  the 
hearing  of  all  the  young  men  throughout  the  land.   He  said  : 

"■  Though  Providence  has  granted  me  unvaried  and  uni- 
versal success  in  the  pursuit  of  fortune  in  other  lands,  I  am 
still  in  heart  the  humble  boy  who  left  yonder  unpretendino- 
dwelling.  There  is  not  a  youth  within  the  sound  of  my  voice 
whose  early  opportunities  and  advantages  are  not  very  much 
greater  than  were  my  own,  and  I  have  since  achieved  nothing 
that  is  impossible  to  the  most  humble  boy  among  you." 

George  Peabody's  success  in  business  was  not  more  re- 
markable than  his  integrity  and  his  great-hearted  benevo- 
lence. I  pray  upon  you  God's  protecting  and  prosperous 
blessing.  I  hope  you  may  all  make  fortunes  for  time  and 
fortunes  for  eternity. 

Some  day  when  you  come  out  of  your  place  of  business, 
and  you  go  to  the  Clearing-house,  or  the  place  of  custom,  or 
the  bank,  or  your  own  home,  as  you  come  out  of  your  place 
of  business,  just  look  up  at  the  clock  of  old  Trinity  and  see 
by  the  movement  of  the  hands  how  your  life  is  rapidly 
going  away,  and  be  reminded  of  the  fact  that  before  God's 
throne  of  inexorable  judgment  you  must  yet  give  account 
for  what  you  have  done  since  the  day  you  sold  the  first  yard 
of  cloth  or  the  first  pomid  of  sugar. 


1 86  TKUMPET  PEALS. 

MONOrOLIES. 

The  pressure  to  do  wrong  is  stronger  from  the  fact  that 
in  our  day  the  large  business  houses  are  swallowing  up  the 
smaller,  the  whales  dining  on  blue-fish  and  minnows.  The 
large  houses  undersell  the  small  ones  because  they  can  afford 
it.  They  can  afford  to  make  nothing,  or  actually  lose,  on 
some  styles  of  goods,  assured  they  can  make  it  up  on  others. 
So,  a  great  dry-goods  house  goes  outside  of  its  regular  line 
and  sells  books  at  cost  or  less  than  cost,  and  that  swamps  the 
booksellers;  or  the  dry-goods  house  sells  bric-k-brac  at  low- 
est figure,  that  swamps  the  small  dealer  in  bric-a-brac.  And 
the  same  thing  goes  on  in  other  styles  of  merchandise,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  all  along  the  business  streets  of  all 
our  cities  there  are  merchants  of  small  capital  who  are  in 
terrific  struggle  to  keep  their  heads  above  water.  The 
Cunarders  run  down  the  Newfoundland  fishing-smacks.  This 
is  nothing  against  the  man  who  has  the  big  store,  for  every 
man  has  as  large  a  store  and  as  great  a  business  as  he  can 
manage. 

The  morals  of  the  Gospel  are  to  be  set  beside  the  faith 
of  the  Gospel.  Mr.  Froude,  the  celebrated  English  his- 
torian, has  written  of  his  own  country  these  remarkable 
words : 

"  From  the  great  house  in  the  City  of  London,  to  the 
village  grocer,  the  commercial  life  of  England  has  been  satu- 
rated with  fraud.  So  deep  has  it  gone  that  a  strictly  honest 
tradesman  can  hardly  hold  his  ground  against  competition. 
You  can  no  longer  trust  that  any  article  you  bu)-  is  the  thing 
which  it  pretends  to  be.  We  have  false  weights,  false  meas- 
ures, cheating,  and  shoddy  everywhere.  And  yet  the  clergy 
have  seen  all  this  grow  up  in  absolute  indifference.  Many 
hundreds  of  sermons  have  I  heard  in  England,  many  a  dis- 
sertation on  the  m>-steries  of  the  faith,  on  the  divine  mission 
of  the  clergy,  on  bishops  and  justification,  and  the  theory  of 
good  works,  and  verbal  inspiration,  and  the  efficacy  of  the 
sacraments  ;  but,  during  all  these  thirty  wonderful  years, 
never  one  that  I  can  recollect  on  common  honesty." 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  1 87 

Now,  that  may  be  an  exaggerated  statement  of  things  in 
England,  but  I  am  very  certain  that  in  all  parts  of  the  earth 
we  need  to  preach  the  moralities  of  the  Gospel  right  along 
beside  the  faith  of  the  Gospel. 


STOLEN   GOODS   RETURNED. 

A  missionary  in  one  of  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  preached 
on  dishonesty,  and  the  next  morning  he  looked  out  of  his 
window,  and  he  saw  his  yard  full  of  goods  of  all  kinds.  He 
wondered  and  asked  the  cause  of  all  this.  "Well,"  said  the 
natives,  "  our  gods  that  we  have  been  worshipping  permit  us 
to  steal,  but  according  to  what  you  said  yesterday,  the  God 
of  Heaven  and  earth  will  not  allow  this,  so  we  bring  back  all 
these  goods,  and  we  ask  you  to  help  us  in  taking  them  to  the 
places  where  they  belong."  If  next  Sabbath  all  the  ministers 
in  America  should  preach  sermons  on  the  abuse  of  trust 
funds,  and  on  the  evils  of  purloining,  and  the  sermons  were 
all  blest  of  God,  and  regulation  were  made  that  all  these 
things  should  be  taken  to  the  city  halls,  it  would  not  be  long 
before  every  city  hall  in  America  would  be  crowded  from 
cellar  to  cupola. 

FASCINATIONS   OF   FRAUD. 

Now  look  abroad  and  see  the  fascinations  that  are  thrown 
around  fraud  and  all  the  different  styles  of  crime. 

The  question  that  every  man  and  woman  has  asked  dur- 
ing the  last  two  months  has  been,  Should  crime  be  excused 
because  it  is  on  a  large  scale  ?  Is  iniquity  guilty  and  to  be 
pursued  of  the  law  in  proportion  as  it  is  on  a  small  scale? 
Shall  we  have  New  York  Tombs  for  the  man  who  steals  an 
overcoat  from  a  hat-rack,  and  all  Canada  for  a  man  to  range 
in  if  he  have  robbed  the  public  of  three  millions  ? 

O  that  God  would  scatter  these  fascinations,  and  let  us 
all  understand  that  if  I  steal  from  you  one  dollar  I  am  a 
thief,  and  if  I  steal  from  you  $500,000  I  am  five  hundred 
thousand   times  more  of   a  thief !     Cultivate  old-fashioned 


1 88  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

honesty.     God's  Book  is  full  of  it.    Old-fashioned  honesty  in 
Business  and  everything  else. 


THE   DUKE    OF   WELLINGTON. 

I  do  not  suppose  there  ever  was  a  better  specimen  of 
honesty  than  was  found  in  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  He 
marched  with  his  army  over  the  French  frontier,  and  the 
army  was  suffering,  and  he  hardly  knew  how  to  get  along. 
Plenty  of  plunder  all  about,  but  he  commanded  none  of  the 
plunder  to  be  taken.  He  writes  home  these  remarkable 
words  :  "  We  are  overwhelmed  with  debts,  and  I  can  scarcely 
stir  out  of  my  house  on  account  of  public  creditors,  waiting 
to  demand  what  is  due  to  them."  Yet  at  that  very  time  the 
French  peasantry  were  bringing  their  valuables  to  him  to 
keep. 

A  celebrated  writer  says  of  the  transaction  :  "  Nothing 
can  be  grander  or  more  nobly  original  than  this  admission. 
This  old  soldier,  after  thirty  years'  service,  this  iron  man  and 
victorious  general,  established  in  an  enemy's  country  at  the 
head  of  an  immense  army,  is  afraid  of  his  creditors !  This 
is  a  kind  of  fear  that  has  seldom  troubled  conquerors  and 
invaders,  and  I  doubt  if  the  annals  of  war  present  anything 
comparable  to  its  sublime  simplicity." 

Dr.  Livingstone,  the  famous  explorer,  was  descended 
from  the  Highlanders,  and  he  said  that  one  of  his  ancestors, 
one  of  the  Highlanders,  one  day  called  his  family  around 
him.  The  Highlander  was  dying;  and  with  his  children 
around  his  death-bed,  he  said :  "  Now,  my  lads,  I  have 
looked  all  through  our  history  as  far  back  as  I  can  find  it, 
and  I  have  never  found  a  dishonest  man  in  all  the  line,  and 
I  want  you  to  understand  you  inherit  good  blood.  You 
have  no  excuse  for  doing  wrong.  My  lads,  be  honest." 
Ah  !  my  friends,  be  honest  before  God,  be  honest  before 
your  fellow-men,  bo  honest  before  your  soul. 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  1 89 


TRUST    FUNDS. 

One  of  the  crying  sins  of  this  day  is  the  abuse  of  trust 
funds.  Every  man  during  the  course  of  his  hfe,  on  a  larger 
or  smaller  scale,  has  the  property  of  others  committed  to  his 
keeping.  He  is  so  far  a  safety  deposit,  he  is  an  administra- 
tor, and  holds  in  his  hand  the  interest  of  the  family  of  a 
deceased  friend.  Or,  he  is  an  attorney,  and  through  his  cus- 
tody goes  the  payment  from  debtor  to  creditor,  or  he  is  the 
collector  for  a  business  house  which  compensates  him  for  the 
responsibility;  or  he  is  a  treasurer  for  a  charitable  institution 
and  he  holds  alms  contributed  for  the  suffering ;  or  he  is  an 
official  of  the  city,  or  the  State,  or  the  nation,  and  taxes, 
and  subsidies,  and  salaries,  and  supplies  are  in  his  keeping. 

It  is  as  solemn  a  trust  as  God  can  make  it.  It  is  concen- 
tred and  multiplied  confidences.  On  that  man  depends  the 
support  of  a  bereft  household,  or  the  morals  of  dependants, 
or  the  right  movement  of  a  thousand  wheels  of  social  mech- 
anism.  A  man  may  do  what  he  will  with  his  own,  but  he 
who  abuses  trust  funds,  in  that  one  act  commits  theft,  false- 
hood, perjury,  and  becomes  in  all  the  intensity  of  the  word 
a  miscreant.  How  many  widows  and  orphans  there  are  with 
nothing  between  them  and  starvation,  but  a  sewing-machine, 
or  held  up  out  of  the  vortex  of  destruction  simply  by  the 
thread  of  a  needle,  and  with  their  own  hearts'  blood,  who  a 
little  while  ago  had,  by  father  and  husband,  left  them  a  com- 
petency. What  is  the  matter?  The  administrators  or  the 
executors  have  sacrificed  it — running  risks  with  it  that  they 
would  not  have  dared  to  encounter  in  their  own  private  af- 
fairs. 

How  often  it  is  that  a  man  will  earn  a  livelihood  by  the 
sweat  of  his  brow,  and  then  die,  and  within  a  few  months 
all  the  estate  goes  into  the  stock-gambling  rapids  of  Wall 
Street. 

How  often  it  is  that  you  have  known  the  man  to  whom 
trust  funds  were  committed  taking  them  out  of  the  savings- 
bank  and  from  trust  companies,  and  administrators,  turning 


IQO  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

old  homesteads  into  hard  cash,  and  then  putting  the  entire 
estate  in  the  vortex  of  speculation.  Embezzlement  is  an 
easy  word  to  pronounce,  but  it  has  ten  thousand  ramifications 
of  horror. 

Let  me  say  to  those  in  charge  of  trust  funds :  It  is  a 
compliment  to  you  that  you  have  been  so  intrusted  ;  but  I 
charge  you,  in  the  presence  of  God  and  the  world,  be  care- 
ful, be  as  careful  of  the  property  of  others  as  you  are  careful 
of  your  own.  Above  all,  keep  your  own  private  account  at 
the  bank  separate  from  your  account  as  trustee  of  an  estate, 
or  trustee  of  an  institution.  That  is  the  point  at  which 
thousands  of  people  make  shipwreck.  They  get  the  prop- 
erty of  others  mixed  up  with  their  own  property,  they  put  it 
into  investment,  and  away  it  all  goes,  and  they  cannot  re- 
turn that  which  they  borrowed.  Then  comes  the  explosion, 
and  the  money  market  is  shaken,  and  the  press  denounces 
and  the  church  thunders  expulsion. 

What  a  sad  thing  it  would  be,  if  after  you  are  dead  your 
administrator  should  find  out  from  the  account-books,  or 
from  the  lack  of  vouchers,  that  you  not  only  were  bank- 
rupt in  estate,  but  that  you  lost  your  soul. 

O  !  there  is  such  a  fearful  fascination  in  this  day  about 
the  use  of  trust-funds.  It  has  got  to  be  popular  to  take  the 
funds  of  others  and  speculate  with  them.  But  O  do  not 
come  under  the  fascination  which  induces  men  to  employ 
trust-funds  for  purposes  of  their  own  speculation. 

DEBT. 

A  debt  is  a  kind  of  tnist-fund,  and  when  incurred  with  no  hope  of 
payment,  is  a  fraudulent  breach  of  trust. —  Editor. 

Society  slaughters  a  great  many  young  men  by  the  be- 
hest, "  You  must  keep  up  appearances  ;  w^hatever  be  your 
salary,  you  must  dress  as  well  as  others  ;  you  must  wine  and 
brandy  as  many  friends,  you  must  smoke  as  costly  cigars, 
)()u  must  give  as  expensive  entertainments,  and  you  must 
live  in  as  fashionable  a  boarding-house.  If  you  haven't  the 
money,  borrow.     If  you  cant  borrow,  make  a  false  entry,  or 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  I9I 

subtract  here  and  there  a  bill  from  a  bundle  of  bank-bills ; 
you  will  only  have  to  make  the  deception  a  little  while  ;  in  a 
few  months,  or  in  a  year  or  two,  you  can  make  all  right. 
Nobody  will  be  hurt  by  it  ;  nobody  will  be  the  wiser.  You 
yourself  will  not  be  damaged."  By  that  awful  process  a 
hundred  thousand  men  have  been  slaughtered  for  time  and 
slaughtered  for  eternity. 

Suppose  you  borrow.  There  is  nothing  wrong  about  bor- 
rowing money.  There  is  hardly  a  man  in  the  house  but  has 
sometimes  borrowed  money.  Vast  estates  have  been  built  on  a 
borrowed  dollar.  But  there  are  two  kinds  of  borrowed  money. 
Money  borrowed  for  the  purpose  of  starting  or  keeping  up 
legitimate  enterprise  and  expense,  and  money  borrowed  to 
get  that  which  you  can  do  without.  The  first  is  right,  the 
other  is  wrong.  If  you  have  money  enough  of  your  own  to 
buy  a  coat,  however  plain,  and  then  you  borrow  money  for  a 
dandy's  outfit,  you  have  taken  the  first  revolution  of  the 
wheel  down  grade.  Borrow  for  the  necessities  ;  that  maybe 
well.  Borrow  for  the  luxuries  ;  that  tips  your  prospects  over 
in  the  wrong  direction. 

The  Bible  distinctly  says  the  borrower  is  servant  of  the 
lender.  It  is  a  bad  state  of  things  when  you  have  to  go 
down  some  other  street  to  escape  meeting  some  one  whom 
you  owe.  If  young  men  knew  what  is  the  despotism  of  be- 
ing in  debt  more  of  them  would  keep  out  of  it. 

The  trouble  is,  my  friends,  the  people  do  not  understand 
the  ethics  of  going  in  debt,  and  that  if  you  purchase  goods 
with  no  expectation  of  paying  for  them,  or  go  into  debt  which 
you  cannot  meet,  you  steal  just  so  much  money.  If  I  go 
into  a  grocer's  store,  and  I  buy  sugars  and  coffees  and  meats, 
with  no  capacity  to  pay  for  them,  and  no  intention  of  paying 
for  them,  I  am  more  dishonest  than  if  I  go  into  the  store, 
and  when  the  grocer's  face  is  turned  the  other  way  I  fill  my 
pockets  with  the  articles  of  merchandise  and  carry  off  a  ham. 
In  the  one  case  I  take  the  merchant's  time,  and  I  take  the 
time  of  his  messenger  to  transfer  the  goods  to  my  house, 
while  in  the  other  case  I  take  none  of  the  time  of  the  mer- 
chant, and  I  wait  upon    myself,  and  I  transfer  the  goods 


192  TRUMPET  PEALS 

without  any  trouble  to  him.  In  other  words,  a  sneak  thief 
is  not  so  bad  as  a  man  who  contracts  for  debts  he  never  ex- 
pects to  pay. 

Now  our  young  men  are  coming  up  in  this  depraved 
state  of  commercial  ethics,  and  I  am  solicitous  about  them. 
I  want  to  warn  them  against  being  slaughtered  on  the  sharp 
edges  of  debt.  You  want  many  things  you  have  not,  my 
young  friends.  You  shall  have  them  if  you  have  patience 
and  honesty  and  industry.  Certain  lines  of  conduct  always 
lead  out  to  certain  results.  There  is  a  law  which  controls 
even  those  things  that  seem  hap-hazard.  The  most  insig- 
nificant event  you  ever  heard  of  is  the  link  between  two 
eternities — the  eternity  of  the  past  and  the  eternity  of  the 
future.  Head  the  right  way,  and  you  will  come  out  at  the 
right  goal. 

Bring  me  a  young  man  and  tell  me  what  his  physical 
health  is,  and  what  his  mental  caliber,  and  what  his  habits, 
and  I  will  tell  you  what  will  be  his  destiny  for  this  world, 
and  his  destiny  for  the  world  to  come,  and  I  will  not  make 
five  inaccurate  prophecies  out  of  five  hundred.  All  this 
makes  me  solicitous  in  regard  to  young  men,  and  I  want  to 
make  them  nervous  in  regard  to  the  contraction  of  unpaya- 
ble debts. 

When  a  young  man  wilfully  and  of  choice,  having  the 
comforts  of  life,  goes  into  the  contraction  of  unpayable 
debts,  he  knows  not  into  what  he  goes.  The  creditors  get 
after  the  debtor,  the  pack  of  hounds  in  full  cry,  and  alas !  for 
the  reindeer.  They  jingle  his  door-bell  before  he  gets  up  in 
the  morning  ;  they  jingle  his  door-bell  after  he  has  gone  to 
bed  at  night;  they  meet  him  as  he  comes  off  his  front  steps. 
They  send  him  a  postal-card,  or  a  letter,  in  the  curtest  st}-lc, 
telling  him  to  pay  up.  They  attach  his  goods.  They  want 
cash,  or  a  note  at  thirty  days,  or  a  note  on  demand.  They 
call  him  a  knave.  They  say  he  lies.  They  want  him  disci- 
plined at  the  church.  They  want  him  turned  out  of  the 
bank.  They  come  at  him  from  this  side,  and  from  that  side, 
and  from  before,  and  from  behind,  and  from  above,  and  from 
beneath,  and    he    is  insulted   and    gibbeted    and    sued   and 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  I93 

dunned  and  sworn  at,  until  he  gets  the  nervous  dyspepsia, 
gets  neuralgia,  gets  Hver  complaint^  gets  heart  disease,  gets 
convulsive  disorder,  gets  consumption. 

Now  he  is  dead,  and  you  say  :  "  Of  course  they  will  let 
him  alone  !"  Oh,  no  !  Now  they  are  watchful  to  see  whether 
there  are  any  unnecessary  expenses  at  the  obsequies,  to  see 
whether  there  is  any  useless  handle  on  the  casket,  to  see 
whether  there  is  any  surplus  plait  on  the  shroud,  to  see 
whether  the  hearse  is  costly  or  cheap,  to  see  whether  the 
flowers  sent  to  the  casket  have  been  bought  by  the  family 
or  donated,  to  see  in  whose  name  the  deed  to  the  grave  is 
made  out.  Then  they  ransack  the  bereft  household,  the 
books,  the  pictures,  the  carpets,  the  chairs,  the  sofa,  the 
piano,  the  mattresses,  the  pillow  on  which  he  dies.  Cursed 
be  debt  I  For  the  sake  of  your  own  happiness,  fos  the  sake 
of  your  good  morals,  for  the  sake  of  your  immortal  soul,  for 
God's  sake,  young  man,  as  far  as  possible,  keep  out  of  it ! 


SWINDLING. 

There  is  not  a  city  or  a  town  that  has  not  suffered  from 
swindling.  Where  is  the  court-house,  or  the  city-hall,  or 
the  jail,  or  the  post-office,  or  the  hospital,  that  in  the  build- 
ing of  it  has  not  had  a  political  job?  I  want  to  say  here, 
there  ought  to  be  a  better  style  of  business  introduced  into 
many  public  places,  and  there  ought  to  be  closer  inspection, 
and  there  ought  to  be  less  opportunity  for  embezzlement. 
Lest  a  man  shall  take  a  five-cent  piece  that  does  not  belong 
to  him,  the  conductor  on  the  city  horse-car  must  sound  his 
bell  at  every  payment,  and  we  are  very  cautious  about  small 
offences,  but  give  plenty  of  opportunity  for  sinners  on  a 
large  scale  to  escape.  For  a  boy  who  steals  a  loaf  of  bread 
from  a  corner  grocer,  to  keep  his  mother  from  starving  to 
death,  a  prison  ;  but  for  defrauders  who  abscond  with  half  a 
million  of  dollars,  a  castle  on  the  Rhine,  or,  waiting  until  the 
offence  is  forgotten,  then  a  castle  on  the  Hudson. 

Another  remark  needs  to  be  made,  and  that  is,  that  people 


194  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ought  not  to  go  into  places,  into  business,  or  into  positions, 
where  the  temptation  is  mightier  than  their  character. 

There  arc  men  who  go  into  positions  full  of  temptation, 
considering  only  the  one  fact  that  they  are  lucrative  posi- 
tions. O!  I  say  to  young  people,  disJioncsty  zuill  not  pay  in 
this  world  or  the  world  to  come. 

You  have  no  right  to  run  an  imseawortliy  craft  into  a 
euroclydon. 

The  devil  is  not  dead.  Notwithstanding  all  the  lessons 
we  have  learned,  people  will  live  beyond  their  income,  and 
to  get  means  for  indulgences  they  will  put  their  hands  in 
other  people's  pockets.  The  forger's  pen  is  not  worn  out, 
the  burglar's  key  is  not  rusty,  the  perjurer's  Bible  is  not  lost. 

A  speculator  comes  down  from  somewhere,  takes  hold 
of  the  money-market  of  New  York,  flaunts  his  abomina- 
tions in  the  sight  of  all  the  people,  defies  public  morals 
every  day  of  his  life.  Young  men  look  up  and  say,  *'  He 
was  a  peddler  in  one  decade,  and  in  the  next  decade  he  is 
one  of  the  monarchs  of  the  stock  market.  That's  the  way  to 
do  it." 

There  has  been  an  irresistible  impression  going  abroad 
among  young  men  that  the  poorest  way  to  get  money  is  to 
earn  it.  The  young  man  of  flaunting  cravat  says  to  the 
young  man  of  humble  apparel,  "  What !  you  only  get  $i,8oo 
a  year?  Why,  that  wouldn't  keep  me  in  pin-money.  I 
spend  $5000  a  year."  "  Where  do  you  get  it  ?"  asks  the  plain 
young  man.  "  O  I  stocks,  enterprises,  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
you  know."  The  plain  young  man  has  hardly  enough  money 
to  pay  his  board,  has  to  wear  clothes  after  they  are  out  of 
fashion,  and  deny  himself  all  luxuries.  After  a  while  he  gets 
tired  of  his  plodding,  and  he  goes  to  the  man  w'ho  has 
achieved  suddenly  large  estate,  and  he  says,  "Just  sJioiv  vie 
how  it  is  done.''  And  he  is  shown.  He  soon  learns  how, 
and  although  he  is  almost  all  the  time  idle  now,  and  has  re- 
signed his  position  in  the  bank,  or  the  factory,  or  the  store, 
he  has  more  money  than  he  ever  had,  trades  off  his  old  silver 
watch  for  a  gold  one  with  a  flashing  chain,  sets  his  hat  a 
little  further  over  on  the  side  of  his  head  than  he  ever  did, 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND    FRAUD.  Ig5 

smokes  better  cigars  and  more  of  them.  He  has  his  hand 
in  !  Now,  if  he  can  escape  the  penitentiary  for  three  or  four 
years  he  will  get  into  political  circles,  and  he  will  get  political 
jobs,  and  will  have  something  to  do  with  harbors,  and  pave- 
ments, and  docks.  Now  he  has  got  so  far  along  he  is  safe 
for  perdition. 

It  is  quite  a  long  road  sometimes  for  a  man  to  travel 
before  he  gets  into  the  romance  of  crime.  Those  are 
caught  who  are  only  in  the  prosaic  stage  of  it.  If  the 
sheriffs  and  constables  would  only  leave  them  alone  a  little 
while,  they  would  steal  as  well  as  anybody.  They  might  not 
be  able  to  steal  a  whole  railroad,  but  they  could  master  a 
load  of  pig-iron. 

Now  I  always  thank  God  when  I  find  an  estate  like  that 
go  to  smash.  It  is  plague-struck,  and  it  blasts  the  nation. 
I  thank  God  when  it  goes  into  such  a  wreck  it  can  never  be 
gathered  up  again. 


UNDER  THE   PRESSURE. 

There  are  hundreds  of  young  men  under  the  pressure, 
under  the  fascinations  thrown  around  about  commercial  in- 
iquity. Thousands  of  young  men  have  gone  down  under 
the  pressure  ;  other  thousands  have  maintained  their  integ- 
rity. God  help  you  !  Let  me  say  to  you,  my  young  friend, 
that  you  can  be  a  great  deal  happier  in  poverty  than  you 
ever  can  be  happy  in  a  prosperity  which  comes  from  illy 
gotten  gains.  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  I  might  lose  my  place.  It 
is  easy  for  you  to  stand  there  and  talk,  but  it  is  no  easy  thing 
to  get  a  place  when  you  have  lost  it.  Besides  that,  I  have  a 
widowed  mother  depending  upon  my  exertions,  and  you 
must  not  be  too  reckless  in  giving  advice  to  me."  Ah,  my 
young  friend,  it  is  always  safe  to  be  right,  but  it  is  never  safe 
to  be  wrong.  You  go  home  and  tell  your  mother  the  pres- 
sure under  which  you  are  in  that  store,  and  I  know  what  she 
will  say  to  you  if  she  is  worthy  of  you.  She  will  say,  "  My 
son,  come  out  from  there  ;    Christ   has   taken   care  of  us  all 


196  TRUMPET  PE.ir.S. 

these  years,  and  lie  will  take  care  of   us  now;    come  out  of 
that." 


THEIR  NAME   IS   LEGION. 

How  many  dishonesties  in  the  making  out  of  invoices, 
and  in  the  plastering  of  false  labels,  and  in  the  filching  of 
customers  of  rival  houses,  and  in  the  making  and  breaking 
of  contracts.  Young  men  are  indoctrinated  in  the  idea  that 
the  sooner  they  get  money  the  better,  and  the  getting  of  it 
on  a  larger  scale  only  proves  to  them  their  greater  ingenuity. 
There  is  a  glitter  thrown  around  about  all  these  things. 
Young  men  have  got  to  find  out  that  God  looks  upon  sin  in 
a  very  different  light. 

An  abbot  wanted  to  buy  a  piece  of  ground  and  the  owner 
would  not  sell  it,  but  the  owner  finally  consented  to  let  it  to 
him  until  he  could  raise  one  crop,  and  the  abbot  sowed 
acorns,  a  crop  of  tzvo  hundred  years  f  And  I  tell  you,  young 
man,  that  the  dishonesties  which  you  plant  in  your  heart  and 
life  will  seem  to  be  very  insignificant,  but  they  will  grow  up 
until  they  will  overshadow  }'Ou  with  horrible  darkness,  over- 
shadow all  time  and  all  eternity.  It  will  not  be  a  crop  for 
two  hundred  years,  but  a  crop  for  everlasting  ages. 

I  want  to  show  the  young  men  of  to-day  that  fraud  will 
out,  that  old-fashioned  honesty  in  the  long-run  pays  the  most, 
that  the  best  luay  to  get  a  dollar  is  to  earn  it,  that  there  is  no 
hiding-place  for  those  who  wrong  their  fellows. 

There  is  not  an  honest  man,  however  poor,  but  is  happier 
than  the  purse-proud  possessor  of  ill-gotten  gains.  Such 
riches,  if  they  do  not,  according  to  the  Bible  figure,  take 
wings  and  fly  toward  heaven,  will  coil  like  serpents  around 
the  heart,  to  chill  and  sting  it  with  remorse  unutterable.  It 
is  not  so  much  what  you  have,  as  how  }-ou  got  it.  If  you 
want  to  make  the  silver  and  gold  of  earth  bright,  you  had 
better  wash  them  with  sweat  from  )'our  own  temples.  Re- 
member that  financial  f.iilurr  on  earth  is  nothing  compared 
with  eternal  defalcation.  I  want  all  dishonesty,  yea,  the 
very  appearance  of  dishonest)'  to   become  so  loathsome  and 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  1 9/ 

yield  such  an  insufferable  stench  that  honest  young  men  will 
take  warning. 

Let  me  say  in  the  most  emphatic  way,  O  young  man, 
dishonesty  will  never  pay. 

A  blustering  young  man  arrived  at  a  hotel  in  the  West, 
and  he  saw  a  man  on  the  sidewalk,  and  in  a  rough  way,  as 
no  man  has  a  right  to  address  a  laborer,  said  to  him  :  "  Carry 
this  trunk  upstairs."  The  man  carried  the  trunk  upstairs 
and  came  down,  and  then  the  young  man  gave  him  a  quar- 
ter of  a  dollar  which  was  marked,  and  instead  of  being 
tvventy-iive  cents  it  was  worth  only  twenty  cents.  Then  the 
young  man  gave  his  card  to  the  laborer,  and  said  :  "  You 
take  this  up  to  Governor  Grimes,  I  want  to  see  him."  "  Ah  !" 
said  the  laborer,  "/ <?■;«  Governor  Grimes!"  "O!"  said  the 
young  man,  "you — I- — excuse  me!"  Then  the  governor 
said  :  "  I  was  much  impressed  by  the  letter  you  wrote  me 
asking  for  a  certain  ofHce  in  my  gift,  and  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  you  should  have  it ;  but  a  young  man  who  will  cheat  a 
laborer  out  of  five  cents  would  swindle  the  government  of 
the  State,  if  he  got  his  hands  on  it.  I  don't  want  you. 
Good-morning,  sir."  It  never  pays.  Neither  in  this  world 
nor  in  the  world  to  come  will  it  pay. 

What  are  you  doing  with  that  fraudulent  document  7  Is 
that  a  ^^ pool  ticket''  you  have  in  your  pocket?  Why,  O 
young  man,  were  you  last  night  practising  in  copying  your 
employer's  signature  1  Where  were  you  last  night  ?  Are 
your  habits  as  good  as  when  you  left  your  father's  house  ? 
You  had  a  Christian  ancestry,  perhaps,  and  you  have  had  too 
many  prayers  spent  on  you  to  go  overboard. 

A  young  man  stood  behind  the  counter  in  New  York 
selling  silks  to  a  lady,  and  he  said  before  the  sale  was  con- 
summated, "  I  see  there  is  a  flaw  in  that  silk."  The  lady 
recognized  it,  and  the  sale  was  not  consummated.  The  head 
man  of  the  firm  saw  the  interview,  and  he  wrote  home  to  the 
father  of  the  young  man  living  in  the  country,  saying,  "  Dear 
sir,  come  and  take  your  boy;  he  will  never  make  a  mer- 
chant." The  father  came  down  from  the  country  home  in 
great  consternation,  as  any   father  would,   wondering  what 


198  -rh-nMrET  J'eai.s. 

his  boy  IkicJ  done.  lie  came  into  the  store,  and  the  mer- 
chant said  to  him,  "  Why,  your  son  pointed  out  a  flaw  in 
some  silk  the  other  day,  and  spoiled  the  sale,  and  we  will 
never  have  that  lady,  probably,  a^^ain  for  a  customer,  and 
your  son  never  will  make  a  merchant."  "  Is  that  all?"  said 
the  father.  "  I  am  proud  of  him.  I  wouldn't  for  the  world 
have  him  another  day  under  your  influence.  John,  get  your 
hat  and  come  ;  let  us  start." 

('I'lic  Ivlilor  adds,  that  theyounf^  man  lost  notliing  by  his  honesty, 
for  that  merchant  recommended  him  to  a  hank,  as  one  who  would 
neither  lie  nor  cheat  for  him.  And  any  young  man  will  find  in  the 
end  that  "  honesty  is  the  best  {joIicy."J 


LOTTERIES. 

"  Upon  My  vesture  difl  tiiey  cast  lots."— Matthkw  27  :  35. 

Christ  had  been  condemned  to  death  and  I  lis  property 
was  being  disposed  of.  He  had  no  real  estate.  He  was 
born  in  a  stranger's  barn,  and  buried  in  a  borrowed  sepulchre. 
His  personal  property  was  of  but  little  value.  His  coat 
was  the  only  thing  to  come  into  consideration.  His  shoes 
had  been  worn  out  in  the  long  journey  for  the  world's 
redemption.  Who  shall  have  I  lis  coat  ?  Some  one  said:  "Let 
us  toss  up  in  a  lottery  and  decide  this  matter."  "  I  have  it !" 
said  one  of  the  inhuman  butchers.  "  I  have  it  !"  "  Upon 
My  vesture  ditl  they  cast  lots."  And  there,  on  that  spot, 
were  born  all  the  lotteries  the  world  has  seen. 

On  that  spot  oi  cruelty  and  shame  and  infamy  there  was 
\n)\\\  t lie  Royal  Ilavaita  Lottery.  There  was  born  the  famous 
Nciv  York  Lottery^  which  pretended  to  have  over  $722,000  in 
cash  prizes.  There  was  born  the  Topeka,  Kansas,  Laramie 
City,\Vyoming  Territory  lotteries.  There  was  born  the  Louis- 
ville lotter}',  with  ilianiomis,  and  pearls,  and  watches  by  the 
bushel.  Tliere  was  born  the  (jeorgia  lottery,  for  the  East 
and  the  West.  There  was  born  the  Louisiana  Lottery, 
sanctioned  by  influential  names.     There  was  born  the  Ken- 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  I-RAUD.  I99 

tucky  Lottery,  for  the  city  school  of  Frankfort.  All  the 
lotteries  that  have  swindled  the  world  were  born  there. 
Without  any  exception,  all  of  them  moral  outrages,  whether 
sanctioned  by  legislative  authority,  or  antagonized  by  it,  and 
moral  outrages,  though  respectable  people  have  sometimes 
damaged  their  property  with  them,  and  blistered  their 
immortal  souls  for  eternity. 

One  of  the  sad  things  about  these  lotteries  is  that  poor 
people  in  their  extremity  and  almost  frenzied  with  their 
destitution,  resort  to  them,  and  lose  their  last  dollar,  their 
last  fifty  cents,  their  last  five  cents;  for  there  are  lotteries 
where  the  drawing  occurs  every  five  minutes.  In  the  time 
of  the  greatest  distress  in  Italy,  $14,000,000  were  annually 
expended  by  the  poorer  population  in  lotteries.  The 
country  was  flooded  with  fascinating  circulars   like   this : — 

"  Agents'  prize  tickets  free  of  cost.  Every  ticket  a  prize. 
No  blanks  and  a  fortune  within  your  reach  without  cost  or 
risk.  Any  person  can  easily  sell  $10  worth  of  tickets  like  the 
enclosed,  monthly,  among  personal  friends,  and  secure  one 
of  the  agents'  tickets  free  of  cost.  Capital  prize  $5000. 
Every  ticket  wins  a  prize.  There  are  ten  thousand  prizes, 
and  only  ten  thousand  tickets." 

Under  the  curse  of  the  lottery  tens  of  thousands  of 
people  are  losing  their  fortunes  and  losing  their  souls. 
What  they  call  a  "  wheel  of  fortune"  is  a  Juggernaut  crush- 
ing out  the  life  of  their  immortal  nature.  In  one  of  the 
insolvent  courts  of  the  country  it  was  found  that  in  one 
village  $200,000  had  been  expended  for  lotteries.  All  the 
officers  of  the  celebrated  United  .States  Bank  which  failed 
were  found  to  have  expended  the  embezzled  moneys  in 
lottery  tickets, 

A  man  won  $50,000  in  a  lottery.  He  .sold  his  ticket  for 
$42,500,  and  yet  had  not  enough  to  pay  charges  against  him 
for  tickets.  He  owed  the  brokers  $45,000.  The  editor  of  a 
newspaper  writes  :  "  My  friend  was  blessed  with  $20,000  in 
a  lottery,  and  from  that  time  he  began  to  go  astray,  and 
yesterday  he  a.sked  of  me  ninepence  to  pay  for  a  night's 
lodging." 


200  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

A  man  won  $20,000  in  a  lottery.  Flattered  by  his  suc- 
cess, he  bought  another  ticket  and  won  still  more  largely. 
Another  ticket  and  still  more  largely.  Then,  being  fairly 
started  on  the  road  to  ruin,  here  and  there  a  loss  did  not 
seem  to  agitate  him,  and  he  w^ent  on  and  on  until  the  select- 
men of  the  village  pronounced  him  a  vagabond  and  picked 
up  his  children  from  the  street,  half  starved  and  almost 
naked.  A  hard-working  machinist  won  a  thousand  dollars 
in  a  lottery.  He  was  thrilled  with  the  success,  disgusted 
with  his  hard  work,  opened  a  rum  grocery,  got  debauched  in 
morals  and  was  found  dead  at  the  foot  of  his  rum  casks. 

0  !  it  would  take  a  pen  plucked  from  the  wing  of  the 
destroying  angel,  and  dipped  in  human  blood,  to  describe 
this  lottery  business.  A  suicide  was  found  having  in  his 
pocket  a  card  of  address  showing  he  was  boarding  at  a  grog- 
shop. Beside  that  he  had  three  lottery  tickets  and  a  leaf 
from  Seneca's  Morals  arguing  in  behalf  of  the  righteousness 
of  self-murder.  After  a  lottery  in  England  there  were  fifty 
suicides  of  those  who  had  held  unlucky  numbers.  There 
are  people  who  have  lottery  tickets  in  their  pockets — tickets 
which,  if  they  have  not  wisdom  enough  to  tear  up  or  burn 
up,  will  be  \\\c\xaduussion  tickets  at  the  door  of  the  lost  zvorld. 
The  brazen  gate  will  swing  open  and  they  will  show  their 
tickets,  and  they  will  go  in,  and  they  will  go  down.  The 
wheel  of  their  eternal  fortune  may  turn  very  slowly,  but 
they  will  find  that  the  doom  of  those  who  reject  the  teach- 
ings of  God  and  imperil  their  immortal  soul  is  their  only 
prize. 

1  pray  God  that  you,  young  man,  may  never  come  to  the 
lamentation  oi  a  Boston  clerk  who  had  embezzled  $18,000 
from  his  employer,  and  after  it  was  all  spent  in  this  infernal 
lottery  business  sat  down  and  wrote  these  words :  "  I  have 
for  the  last  seven  months  gone  fast  down  the  broad  road. 
There  was  a  time,  and  that  only  a  few  months  since,  when  I 
was  happy,  because  I  was  free  from  debt  and  care.  The 
moment  of  the  first  steps  in  my  downfall  was  about  the 
middle  of  last  June,  when  I  took  a  share  in  a  conij^any — 
bought  lottery  tickets  whereby  I  was  successful  in  obtaining 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  201 

a  share  of  one  half  of  tJie  capital  prize,  since  which  I  have 
gone  from  myself.  I  have  lived  and  dragged  out  a  miser- 
able existence  for  two  or  three  months  past.  O  that  the 
seven  or  eight  months  past  of  my  existence  could  be  blotted 
out.  But  I  must  go,  and  ere  this  paper  is  read  my  spirit  has 
gone  to  my  Maker  to  give  an  account  of  my  misdeeds  here, 
and  to  receive  the  eternal  sentence  for  self-destruction  and 
abused  confidence.  Relatives  and  friends  I  have  from  whom 
I  do  not  wish  to  part  under  such  circumstances,  but  necessity 
compels.  O  wretch  !  lottery  tickets  have  been  thy  ruin.  But 
I  cannot  add  more." 

The   dismal   echo  of   the  ruin  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
young  men. 


GIFT  STORES. 

Then,  there  are  gift  stores  which  make  swindlers  by  the 
hundreds.  I  refer  to  those  stores  where,  if  you  buy  a  watch, 
or  a  sewing-machine,  or  a  piano,  there  is  a  prize  connected 
with  it.  It  is  only  a  sharp  way  of  getting  rid  of  unsalable 
goods.  Those  stores  have  filled  the  land  with  fictitious  arti- 
cles, and  covered  up  our  population  with  brass  finger-rings, 
and  despoiled  public  morals,  and  have  made  more  swindlers 
than  you  can  count.  The  lottery  business  will  stop  at  no  in- 
decency. In  Maryland  they  actually  drew  for  prizes  lots  in 
a  burying  ground  ! 

In  the  name  of  God,  I  arraign  all  such  gift  enterprises  as 
having  a  tendency  to  make  this  a  nation  of  swindlers.  Men 
failing  in  other  enterprises  go  into  gift  concerts  where  the 
attraction  is  not  the  music  but  the  packages  distributed  among 
the  audience,  or  into  a  sale  of  books  where  the  attraction  is 
not  the  book  but  the  package  that  goes  with  the  book.  So 
in  our  time  we  have  known  tobacco  dealers  to  advertise  that 
on  a  certain  day  in  every  one  of  their  papers  there  would  be 
a  prize,  and  whether  a  man  bought  the  tobacco  in  Chicago, 
or  Boston,  or  Charleston,  or  New  Orleans,  or  New  York,  he 
would  get  a  magnificent  gratuity.     Boys  hawking  prize  pack- 


202  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ages   through  the   cars — packages  containing  no  one  knows 
what  until  they  are  opened  and  found  to  contain  nothing, 

Ay,  the  cause  of  charity  is  insulted,  and  under  the  name 
of  gift  enterprises  the  gambling  spirit  goes  on.  You  remem- 
ber at  the  close  of  the  war  how  we  had  gift  enterprises  all 
over  the  country,  "the  proceeds /c;r //r  benefit  of  the  ividows 
and  orphans  of  soldiers."  What  did  the  men  engaged  in 
those  enterprises  care  for  the  orphans?  They  would  have 
been  willing  to  allow  them  to  freeze  on  their  doorstep.  I 
have  no  faith  in  a  charity  which  for  the  purpose  of  relieving 
present  distress  will  open  the  jaw  of  a  monster  which  has 
taken  down  so  many  of  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men.  I  be- 
lieve through  these  gift  enterprises  there  are  thousands  of 
people  being  turned  into  gambling  habits.  O,  my  friends, 
do  one  of  two  things  ;  be  honest,  or  die  ! 


SNARES. 

Yachting  and  base-ball  playing  have  been  the  occasion  of 
putting  up  excited  and  extravagant  wagers.  That  which  to 
many  has  been  advantageous  to  body  and  mind,  has  been  to 
others  the  means  of  financial  and  moral  loss.  The  custom  is 
pernicious  in  the  extreme,  where  scores  of  men  in  respectable 
life  give  themselves  up  to  betting,  now  on  this  boat,  now  on 
that  ;  now  on  this  ball  club,  now  on  that. 


BETTING, 

that  once  was  chiefly  the  accompaniment  of  the  race-course, 
is  fast  becoming  a  national  habit,  and  in  some  circles  any 
opinion  advanced  on  finance  or  politics  is  accosted  with  the 
interrogation  :  "  How  much  will  you  bet  on  that,  sir?" 

This  custom  may  make  no  appeal  to  slow,  lethargic  tem- 
peraments, but  there  arc  in  the  country  tens  of  thousands  of 
quick,  nervous,  sanguine,  excitable  temperaments,  ready  to 
be  acted  upon,  and  their  feet  will  soon  take  hold  on  death. 
For  some  months,  and  perhaps  for  years,  they  will  linger  in 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  203 

the  more  polite  and  elegant  circle  of  gamesters,  but,  after  a 
while,  their  pathway  will  come  to  the  fatal  plunge. 


OTHER   SWINDLING   SCHEMES. 

There  are  a  good  many  respectable  people  who,  while 
they  oppose  the  ordinary  lottery,  patronize  art  associations 
and  gift  enterprises  under  the  impression  that  iniquity  is  not 
quite  so  bad  if  it  have  a  more  popular  nomenclature,  and 
that  there  cannot  be  any  very  great  harm  in  a  ticket  which 
will  draw  for  one  Bierstadt's  "  Yosemite  Valley,"  or  Cropsey's 
"American  Autumn."  Multitudes  who  cannot  be  capti- 
vated with  the  more  vulgar  forms  of  gambling  or  lottery,  are 
captivated  by  this  form. 

A  few  years  ago,  we  saw  in  all  our  cities  the  flaming  ad- 
vertisements of  the  Crosby  Opera  House  scheme.  A  man  in 
Chicago  found  an  unprofitable  building  on  his  hands,  and  he 
resolved  to  make  all  the  nation  help  him  out  of  that  difificul- 
ty.  Lottery  offices  were  opened  in  all  the  great  cities.  The 
people  rushed  in.  Philadelphia  bought  over  $30,000  worth 
of  the  tickets  ;  New  York  bought  over  $100,000  worth  of  the 
tickets.  The  hour  approaches.  The  trains  cany  to  the  city 
dignified  committees  to  see  that  the  abomination  is  conducted 
in  a  Christian  and  orderly  style.  Trains  are  loaded  with 
great  multitudes  who  come  to  get  their  fortunes. 

T/ie  agony  is  over.  A  great  number  of  people  have  had 
narrow  escape  of  sudden  affluence.  Swift  horses,  foaming 
and  lathered,  dash  up  to  the  house  of  the  man  who  holds  the 
successful  ticket.  The  lightnings  carry  to  the  four  winds  of 
heaven  the  news,  and  our  enterprising  pictorials  hasten  for- 
ward their  photographers  to  take  the  pictures  of  the  man 
who  had  the  ticket  58,600.  Multitudes  of  people  declared 
there  was  foul  play,  and  that  if  the  truth  were  only  known 
they  themselves  had  won  the  opera-house.  The  man  who 
won  the  opera-house  soon  died  of  drunkenness,  and  the  beau- 
tiful opera-house  which  had  been  raffled  away,  strange  to  say, 
was  found  at  last  in  the  possession  of  the  original  owner.  A 
swindle !  an  insult  to  God  and  the  American  people ! 


?04  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


THE   TULIP   MANIA. 


The  Hollanders,  the  most  phlegmatic  people  in  the  world, 
had  their  gambling  scene  in  1683.  It  was  called  tJie  tulip 
mania.  It  was  a  speculation  in  tulips.  Properties  worth 
half  a  million  dollars  turned  into  tulips.  All  the  Holland 
nation  cither  buying  or  selling  tulips.  One  tulip-root  sold 
for  two  hundred  dollars,  another  for  two  thousand. 

Excitement  rolling  on  and  rolling  on  until  histor}-  tells 
us  that  one  Amsterdam  tulip,  which  was  supposed  to  be  the 
only  one  of  the  kind  in  all  the  world,  actually  brought  in  the 
markets  $1,816,000!  That  is  a  matter  of  history.  Of  course 
the  crash  came,  and  all  Holland  went  down  under  it. 


MISSISSirPI   SCHEME. 

But  France  must  have  its  gambling  expedition,  and  that 
was  in  1716.  John  Law's  Mississippi  scheme  it  was  called. 
The  French  had  heard  that  this  American  continent  was 
built  out  of  solid  gold,  and  the  project  was  to  take  it  across 
the  ocean  and  drop  it  in  France.  Excitement  beyond  any- 
thing that  had  yet  been  seen  in  the  world.  Three  hundred 
thousand  applicants  for  shares.  Excitement  so  great  that 
sometimes  the  mounted  military  had  to  disperse  the  crowds 
that  had  come  to  get  the  stocks.  Five  hundred  temporary 
tents  built  to  accommodate  the  people  until  they  could  have 
opportunity  of  interviewing  John  Law. 

A  lady  of  great  fashion  had  her  coachman  upset  her  near 
the  place  where  John  Law  was  passing,  in  order  that  she 
might  have  an  interview  with  that  benevolent  and  sympa- 
thetic gentleman  !  Stocks  went  up  to  two  thousand  and  fif- 
ty per  cent,  until  one  day  suspicion  got  into  the  market,  and 
down  it  all  went — John  Law's  Mississippi  scheme — bur)'ing 
its  projector  and  some  of  the  greatest  financiers  in  all  France, 
and  was  almost  as  bad  as  a  French  revolution. 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD  20$ 

SOUTH   SEA  BUBBLE. 

Sedate  England  took  its  chance  in  1720.  That  was  tlie 
South  Sea  bubble.  They  proposed  to  transfer  all  the  gold  of 
Peru  and  Mexico  and  the  islands  of  the  sea  to  England. 
Five  millions'  worth  of  shares  were  put  on  the  market  at 
three  hundred  pounds  a  share.  The  books  open,  in  a  few 
days  it  is  all  taken,  and  twice  the  amount  subscribed. 

Excitement  followed  excitement,  until  all  kinds  of  gam- 
bling projects  came  forth  under  the  wing  of  this  South  Sea 
enterprise.  There  was  a  large  company  formed  with  great 
capital  [ox  providing  funerals  for  all  parts  of  the  land.  An- 
other company  with  large  capital,  five  million  pounds  of  capi- 
tal, to  develop  a  wheel  in  perpetual  motion.  Another  com- 
pany with  a  capital  of  four  million  pounds,  to  insure  people 
against  loss  by  servants.  Another  company  with  two  million 
five  hundred  thousand  pounds  capital  to  transplant  walnut 
trees  from  Virginia  to  England.  But  of  course,  when  blown 
to  the  full  capacity,  THE  BUBBLE  BURST  ! 

To  cap  the  climax,  a  company  was  formed  for  "  a  great 
undertaking,  nobody  to  know  what  it  is."  And  lo !  six  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  in  shares  were  offered  at  one  hundred 
pounds  a  share  ;  books  were  opened  at  9  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  closed  at  3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the 
first  day  it  was  all  subscribed.  "  A  great  undertaking,  no- 
body to  know  what  it  is."  An  old  magazine  of  those  days 
describes  the  scene  {Hunt's  Magazine).     It  says  : 

"  From  morning  until  evening  Change  Alley  was  full  to 
overflowing  with  one  dense  moving  mass  of  living  beings, 
composed  of  the  most  incongruous  materials,  and  in  all 
things  save  the  mad  pursuit  wherefor  they  were  employed 
utterly  opposite  in  their  principles  and  feelings,  and  far 
asunder  in  then-  stations  in  life  and  the  professions  they  fol- 
low. Statesmen  and  clergymen  deserted  their  high  stations 
to  enter  upon  this  great  theatre  of  speculation  and  gam- 
bling. Churchmen  and  Dissenters  left  their  fierce  disputes 
and  forgot  their  wranglings  upon  church  government  in  the 
deep   and  hazardous  game   they   Avere   playing    for  worldly 


206  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

treasures  and  for  riches,  which,  if  gained,  were  liable  to  dis- 
appear within  an  hour  of  their  creation. 

"  Whigs  and  Tories  buried  their  weapons  of  political  war- 
fare, discarded  party  animosities,  and  mingled  together  in 
kind  and  friendly  intercourse,  each  exulting  as  their  stocks 
advanced  in  price,  and  grumbling  when  fortune  frowned  upon 
them.  Lawyers,  physicians,  merchants,  and  travelling  men 
forsook  their  employment,  neglected  their  business,  disre- 
garded their  engagements,  to  whirl  along  in  the  stream  and 
be  at  last  ingulfed  in  the  wild  sea  of  bankruptcy. 

"Females  mixed  with  the  crowd,  forgetting  the  station 
and  employment  which  nature  had  fitted  them  to  adorn, 
and  dealt  boldly  and  extensively,  and,  like  those  by  whom 
they  were  surrounded,  rose  from  poverty  to  wealth,  and  from 
that  were  thrown  down  to  beggary  and  want,  and  all  in  one 
short  week,  and  perhaps  before  the  evening  which  termi- 
nated the  first  day  of  their  speculation.  Ladies  of  high  rank, 
regardless  of  every  appearance  of  dignity,  and  blinded  by 
the  prevailing  infatuation,  drove  to  the  shops  of  their  milli- 
ners and  haberdashers,  and  there  met  their  stock-brokers, 
whom  they  regularly  employed,  and  through  whom  extensive 
sales  were  daily  negotiated.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitement 
all  distinctions  of  party,  and  religion,  and  circumstances, 
and  character  were  swallowed  up." 

MORUS   MULTICAULIS. 

It  was  left  for  our  own  country  to  surp^Iss  all.  We  have 
the  highest  mountains,  and  the  greatest  cataracts,  and  the 
longest  rivers,  and,  of  course,  we  had  to  have  the  largest 
swindle.  One  would  have  thought  that  the  nation  had  seen 
enough  in  that  direction  during  the  morns  mnlticaiilis  excite- 
ment, when  almost  every  man  had  a  bunch  of  crawling  silk- 
worms in  his  house  out  of  which  he  expected  to  make  a  for- 
tune. 

OIL   FEVER. 

But  all  this  excitement  was  as  nothing  compared  with 
what  took  place  in   1864,  when  a  man  near  Titusville,  Pa., 


LYING,  DISHONESTY,  AND  FRAUD.  20/ 

digging  for  a  well,  struck  oil.  Twelve  hundred  oil  compa- 
nies call  for  one  billion  of  stock.  Prominent  members  of 
churches,  as  soon  as  a  certain  amount  of  stock  was  assigned 
them,  saw  it  was  their  liberty  to  become  presidents,  or  sec- 
retaries, or  members  of  the  board  of  direction. 

Some  of  these  companies  never  had  a  foot  of  ground, 
never  expected  to  have.  Their  entire  equipment  was  a  map 
of  a  region  where  oil  might  be,  and  two  phials  of  grease, 
crude  and  clarified.  People  rushed  down  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  by  the  first  train  and  put  their  hard  earnings  in 
the  gulf. 

A  young  man  came  down  from  the  oil  regions  of  Penn- 
sylvania utterly  demented,  having  sold  his  farm  at  a  fabu- 
lous price,  because  it  was  supposed  there  might  be  oil  there 
— coming  to  a  hotel  in  Philadelphia,  at  the  time  I  was  living 
there,  throwing  down  a  five-thousand-dollar  check  to  pay  for 
his  Monday  meal  and  saying  he  did  not  care  anything 
about  the  change  !  Then  he  stepped  back  to  the  gas-burner 
to  liglit  his  cigar  witJi  a  thousand-dollar  note.  Utterly  in- 
sane. 

The  good  Christian  people  said,  "  This  company  must 
all  be  right,  because  Elder  So-and-so  is  president  of  it,  and 
Elder  So-and-so  is  secretary  of  it,  and  then  there  are  three  or 
four  highly  professed  Christians  in  the  board  of  directors. 
To  join  this  company  is  almost  like  joining  the  church  !" 
They  did  not  know  that  when  a  professed  Christian  goes  into 
stock-gambling  he  lies  like  sin  ! 

But  alas  !  for  the  country ;  it  became  a  tragedy,  and  one 
thousand  million  dollars  were  swamped.  There  are  families 
to-day  sitting  in  the  shadow  of  destitution,  who  but  for  that 
great  national  outrage  would  have  had  their  cottages  and 
their  homesteads. 

WARNING   TO    YOUNG    MEN. 

I  hold  up  before  young  men  these  great  swindling  schemes 
that  they  may  see  to  what  length  men  will  go  smitten  of 
this  passion,  and  I  want  to  show  them  how  all  the  best  inter- 
ests of  society  are  against  it,  and  God  is  against  it,  and  will 
damn  it  for  time  and  damn  it  for  eternity. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Gambling. 
"Aceldama,  that  is  to  say,  The  field  of  blood." — Acts  i  :  19. 

The  money  that  Judas  gave  for  surrendering  Christ  was 
used  to  purchase  a  graveyard.  As  the  money  was  blood- 
money,  the  ground  bought  by  it  was  called  in  the  Syriac 
tongue,  Aceldama,  meaning  "  The  field  of  blood."  Well, 
there  is  one  word  I  want  to  write  over  every  race-course 
where  wagers  are  staked,  and  every  pool-room,  and  every 
gambling  saloon,  and  every  table,  public  or  private,  where 
men  and  women  bet  for  sums  of  money,  large  or  small,  and 
that  is  a  word  incarnadine  with  the  life  of  innumerable  vic- 
tims— Aceldama.  The  gambling  spirit,  which  is  at  all  times 
a  stupendous  evil,  ever  and  anon  sweeps  over  the  country 
like  an  epidemic,  prostrating  uncounted  thousands. 

The  fact  that  there  is  not  enough  moral  force  to  put  into 
the  penitentiary  the  gambling  jockeys  who  belong  there,  is 
only  a  specimen  of  the  power  gained  by  this  abomination, 
which  is  brazen,  sanguinary,  transcontinental  and  hemi- 
spheric. 

Some  of  you  are  engaged  in  mercantile  concerns,  as  clerks 
and  book-keepers,  and  your  whole  life  is  to  be  passed  in  the 
exciting  world  of  traffic.  The  sound  of  busy  life  stirs  you  as 
the  drum  stirs  the  fiery  war-horse.  Others  are  in  the  mechan- 
ical arts,  to  hammer  and  chisel  your  wa}-  through  life,  and 
success  awaits  )ou.  Some  arc  preparing  for  professional 
life,  and  grand  opportunities  are  before  you;  nay,  some  of 
you  already  have  buckled  on  the  armor.  Rut.  whatever  }'our 
age  or  calling,  the  subject  of  gambling  about  w  Inch  I  speak 
is  pertinent. 

"  O  !"  says  some  one,  "that  subject  has  no  interest  for 

208 


GAMBLING.  209 

mc  ;  that  evil  never  touches  me  at  any  point."  There  is  not 
a  man  or  woman  but  is  touched  by  it.  Years  ago  a  society 
was  formed  for  the  suppression  of  gambling,  and  the  agent 
of  that  society  went  to  a  prominent  merchant  of  New  York 
and  asked  his  help.  "  O  !"  said  the  merchant,  "  I  have  no 
interest  in  that  society.  Gambling  is  an  evil,  but  in  no-wise 
touches  my  business."  He  did  not  know  that  his  oldest  son, 
a  partner  with  him  in  business,  was  the  heaviest  player  in 
Hearne's  famous  gambling  establishment. 

The  agent  went  to  another  citizen,  who  said  :  "  O,  that's 
a  very  good  society,  but  I  don't  know  why  you  ask  my  help. 
I  am  well  acquainted  with  all  my  employes.  They  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  gambling  habit."  He  did  not  know 
that  one  of  his  bookkeepers  on  a  thousand  a  year  was  losing 
fifty  and  a  hundred  dollars  every  night  just  then  at  the  faro 
table.  The  agent  of  that  society  went  to  a  prominent  rail- 
road man,  asking  for  his  patronage.  "  O  !"  he  said,  "  that 
society  for  the  suppression  of  gambling  is  a  good  thing  for 
the  defence  of  merchants  and  manufacturers,  but  I  don't 
know  why  you  ask  help  of  me,  a  railroad  man."  He  did 
not  know  that  two  of  his  conductors  were  spending  three 
nights  of  every  week  at  the  faro  table. 

Gambling  is  the  great  plague  of  the  American  nation — a 
plague  that  has  swept  over  all  our  cities  and  smitten  down  a 
vast  multitude  of  those  who  were  once  the  very  best  citizens. 

And  there  is  not  a  person  in  the  land  but  ought  to  have 
an  interest  in  the  subject. 

WHAT   IS   GAMBLING? 

Gambling  is  risking  something  without  consideration  with 
the  idea  of  winning  more  than  you  hazard.  Playing  cards  is 
not  gambling  unless  a  stake  be  put  up,  while  on  the  other 
hand  a  man  may  gamble  without  cards,  without  dice,  with- 
out billiards,  without  ten-pin  alley.  It  may  not  be  bagatelle, 
it  may  not  be  billiards,  it  may  not  be  any  of  the  ordinary  in- 
struments of  gambling.  It  may  be  a  glass  of  wine.  It  may 
be  a  hundred  shares  in  a  prosperous  railroad  company.   I  do 


210  TKCMPIiT  PEALS. 

not  care  what  the  instruments  of  the  game  arc,  or  what  the 
stakes  are  that  are  put  up — if  you  propose  to  get  anything 
without  paying  for  it  in  time,  or  skill,  or  monc\-,  unless  you 
get  it  by  inheritance,  you  get  it  either  by  theft  or  by 
gambling. 

This  is  no  new  sprite  come  forth  to  curse  the  nation.  It 
is  a  haggard  transaction  that  comes  down  under  a  mantle  of 
curses,  staggering  through  the  centuries.  Before  1838  the 
French  government  received  a  revenue  from  the  gaming 
tables.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  English  Government, 
for  the  improvement  of  the  harbors,  had  gambling  enacted 
at  the  door  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  The  British  Museum 
and  Westminster  Bridge  w'ere  partially  built  by  gambling. 
The  Germans  used  to  put  themselves  and  their  families  up 
as  prizes,  and  when  they  w-ere  lost  as  prizes  would  allow  those 
who  were  physically  weaker  than  themselves  to  bind  them 
and  take  them  off.  In  our  day,  the  House  of  Commons  ad- 
journs on  Derby  Day,  to  go  out  and  bet  on  the  horses. 
What  is  bad  in  other  lands  is  bad  here,  and  all  through  this 
land. 

A  traveller  said  he  travelled  one  thousand  miles  on 
Western  waters,  and  at  every  waking  moment,  from  the  start- 
ing to  the  closing  of  his  journey,  he  was  in  the  presence  of 
gambling.  A  man,  if  he  is  disposed  to  this  vice,  will  find 
something  to  accommodate  him  ;  if  not  in  the  low  restaurant 
behind  the  curtain,  on  the  table  covered  with  greasy  cards, 
or  in  the  steamboat  cabin,  where  the  bloated  wretch  with 
rings  in  his  ears  winks  in  an  unsuspecting  traveller,  or  in  the 
elegant  parlor,  the  polished  drawing-room,  the  mirrored  and 
pictured  halls  of  wealth  and  beauty.  This  vice  destroys 
through  unhealthy  stimulants. 

Look  out  for  any  kind  of  excitement  which,  after  the 
gratification  of  the  appetite,  hurls  the  man  back  into  de- 
structive reactions.  Then  the  excitement  is  wicked.  Beware 
of  an  agitation  which,  like  a  rough  musician,  in  order  to  call 
out  the  tune,  plays  so  hard  he  breaks  down  the  instrument. 
God  never  yet  made  a  man  strong  enough  to  endure  gam- 
bling excitements  without  damage.     It  is  no  surprise  that 


GAMBLING  211 

many  a  man  seated  at  the  game  has  lost  and  then  begun  to 
sweep  off  imaginary  gold  from  the  table.  He  sat  down 
sane.     He  rose  a  maniac. 

The  keepers  of  gambling  saloons  school  themselves  into 
placidity.  They  are  fat,  and  round,  and  rollicking,  and 
obese  ;  but  those  who  go  to  play  for  the  sake  of  winning  are 
thin,  and  pale,  and  exhausted,  and  nervous,  and  sick,  and 
have  the  heart-disease,  and  are  liable  any  moment  to  drop 
down  dead.  That  is  the  character  of  nine  out  of  ten  of  the 
gamblers.     You  cannot  be  healthy  and  practise  that  vice. 


KILLING   TO    INDUSTRY. 

Do  you  notice  that  just  as  soon  as  a  man  gets  that  vice  on 
him  he  stops  his  work?  How  dull  is  the  store,  the  shop,  the 
factory,  the  banking-house !  Do  you  not  know  that  this 
vice  has  dulled  the  saw  of  the  carpenter,  and  cut  the  band 
of  the  factory  wheel,  and  sunk  the  cargo,  and  broken  the 
teeth  of  the  farmer's  rake,  and  sent  a  strange  lightning  to  the 
battery  of  the  philosopher?  What  a  dull  thing  is  a  plough 
to  a  farmer,  when  in  one  night  in  the  village  restaurant  he 
can  make  or  lose  the  price  of  a  whole  harvest !  How  dull  it 
is  for  a  man  to  sell  tape,  and  silk,  and  calico,  and  nankeen, 
and  weigh  sugars,  or  run  up  and  down  a  long  line  of  dull 
figures,  when  he  can  in  one  night  make  or  lose  the  price  of  a 
whole  business  season ! 


KILLING  TO   CHARACTER. 

Any  trade  or  occupation  that  is  of  use  is  ennobling.  The 
street  sweeper  advances  the  interests  of  society  by  the  clean- 
liness effected.  The  cat  pays  for  the  fragments  it  eats  by 
clearing  the  house  of  vermin.  The  fly  that  takes  the  sweet- 
ness from  the  dregs  of  the  cup,  compensates  by  purifying 
the  air  and  keeping  back  the  pestilence.  But  the  gambler 
gives  only  disgrace  to  the  man  that  he  fleeces,  despair  to  his 


212  TKUMPKT  PEALS. 

heart,  ruin  to  liis  business,  anguish  to  his  wife,  shame  to  his 
children,  and  eternal  wasting  away  to  his  soul.  He  pays  in 
tears  and  blood  and  agony  and  darkness  and  woe. 


SHALL  GAMBLERS  TRIUMPH? 

Sennacherib,  the  Infamous,  had  taxed  and  outraged  the 
people  until  it  was  time  to  have  him  stopped.  The  Lord 
proposed  to  stop  him  ;  and  not  in  any  mild  or  complimen- 
tary way.  God  says  He  will  not  argue  or  persuade  him,  but 
as  a  butcher  thrusts  an  iron  hook  into  the  nose  of  an  ox  and 
leads  it  to  the  slaughter,  so  He  turns  back  this  infamous 
Sennacherib.  "  I  will  put  my  hook  in  thy  nose,  and  turn 
thee  back  by  the  way  which  thou  earnest." 

T lie  gambling  evil  in  our  time  has  taken  on  imperial  airs, 
and  it  is  a  Sennacherib.  It  has  taxed  and  outraged  a  mut- 
titude  of  people  already  to  financial  and  spiritual  death. 
The  work  is  to  be  stopped.  The  evil  was  never  so  defiant 
or  blatant  as  to-day.  The  question,  the  absorbing  question 
for  all  classes  of  people  who  are  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
our  cities,  is,  whether  the  gamblers  shall  be  triumphant,  or 
whether  the  ofificers  of  the  government  in  all  our  cities  shall 
be  backed  by  a  healthy  and  vehement  public  opinion. 

Sir  Garnet  Wolseley  prophesied  that  on  the  fifteenth  of 
September  he  should  have  Arabi  Pasha  a  prisoner  and  that 
the  Egyptians  would  be  overthrown.  With  marvellous  ac- 
curacy the  prophecy  came  true,  and  on  the  fifteenth  of  Sep- 
tember the  rebellion  had  practically  been  overthrown.  And 
though  we  may  not  give  the  date,  may  we  not,  in  the  name 
of  eternal  Justice,  prophecy  that  this  gigantic  evil  shall  be 
overthrown  ? 

What  all  churches,  what  all  reformatory  institutions, 
what  all  good  people  now  need  to  do  is  to  rally  a  vigorous 
public  sentiment  on  this  subject  and  let  the  authorities  in 
all  our  cities  know  that  they  will  be  backed  up  by  all  Chris- 
tian, all  decent  peojile,  in  every  effort  to  put  down  crime  and 
to  elevate  virtue. 


GAMBLING.  213 


A  SENNACHERIBEAN   EVIL. 


In  Cincinnati,  on  my  way  to  the  depot,  I  heard  the  rat- 
tling of  the  dice  of  gambling  saloons,  and  then  I  went  out 
into  the  country  to  a  large  agricultural  fair,  and  in  front  of 
the  hotel  there  was  a  large  group  of  men  gambling  all  day, 
while  their  honest  neighbors  were  admiring  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  blessing  God  for  our  great  prosperity.  The  evil 
has  rolled  over  this  whole  land.  This  Sennacherib  needs  to 
to  have  an  iron  hook  in  his  nose  until  he  shall  be  brousjht 
back,  until  he  shall  be  brought  down,  until  he  shall  be  de- 
stroyed, and  it  shall  be  demonstrated  that  honest.  Christian 
sentiment  in  all  our  cities  is  mightier  than  crime. 

Fathers  and  brothers  and  sons  may  well  be  enlisted  in 
such  a  discussion,  but  just  as  much,  wives,  mothers,  sisters, 
and  daughters  need  to  be  enlisted  in  such  a  discussion  lest 
their  present  home  be  sacrificed,  or  their  intended  home 
blasted.  No  person  can  say  successfully :  "  That  evil  has 
no  relation  to  me  or  mine."  Before  long  it  may  be  found 
out  in  your  own  experience  that  this  discussion  had  for  you 
practical  bearing  on  three  worlds — earth,  Heaven,  and  hell. 
People  who  have  not  looked  into  this  matter  have  no  idea  of 
the  extent  of  the  evil. 

In  one  year,  in  New  York  City,  there  were  seven  million 
dollars  sacrificed  at  the  gaming-table.  Perhaps  some  of  your 
friends  have  been  smitten  of  this  sin.  Perhaps  some  of  you 
have  been  smiten  by  it.  Perhaps  there  may  be  a  stranger 
in  the  house  this  morning  come  from  some  of  the  hotels. 
Look  out  for  those  agents  of  iniquity  who  tarry  around 
about  the  hotels,  and  ask  you,  "  Would  you  like  to  see  the 
city?"  "Yes."  "  Have  you  ever  seen  that  splendid  build- 
ing up-town  ?"  "  No."  Then  the  villain  will  undertake  to 
show  you  what  he  calls  the  "  lions"  and  the  "  elephants,"  and 
after  a  young  man,  through  morbid  curiosity  or  through 
badness  of  soul,  has  seen  the  "lions"  and  the  "elephants," 
he  will  be  on  enchanted   cfround.     Look  out  for  these  men 


214  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

who  move  around  the  hotels  with  sleek  hats — always  sleek 
hats — and  patronizing  air,  and  unaccountable  interest  about 
your  welfare  and  entertainment.  You  are  a  fool  if  you  can- 
not see  through  it.     They  want  your  money. 

A   MERCILESS   EVIL. 

In  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia,  when  I  was  living  in  that 
city,  a  young  man  went  into  a  gambling-saloon,  lost  all  his 
property,  then  blew  his  brains  out,  and  before  the  blood  was 
washed  from  the  floor  by  the  maid  the  comrades  were 
shuffling  cards  again.  You  see,  there  is  more  mercy  in  the 
highwayman  for  the  belated  traveller  on  whose  body  he 
heaps  the  stones,  there  is  more  mercy  in  the  frost  for  the 
flower  that  it  kills,  there  is  more  mercy  in  the  hurricane  that 
shivers  the  steamer  on  the  Long  Island  coast,  than  there  is 
mercy  in  the  heart  of  a  gambler  for  his  victim. 

DEEDS   OF   DARKNESS. 

That  commercial  house  that  only  a  little  while  ago  put 
out  a  sign  of  copartnership  will  this  winter  be  wrecked  on  a 
gambler's  table.  There  will  be  many  a  money-till  that  will 
spring  a  leak. 

In  the  third  watch  of  the  night  pass  down  the  streets 
and  you  hear  the  click  of  the  dice  and  the  sharp,  keen  stroke 
of  the  ball  on  the  billiard-table.  At  these  places  merchant 
princes  dismount,  and  legislators,  tired  of  making  laws,  take 
a  respite  in  breaking  them.  All  classes  of  people  are  robbed 
by  this  crime — the  importer  of  foreign  silks  and  the  dealer 
in  Chatham  Street  pocket-handkerchiefs.  The  clerks  of  the 
store  take  a  hand  after  the  shutters  are  put  up,  and  the  offi- 
cers of  the  court  while  away  their  time  while  the  jury  is  out. 

In  Baden-Baden,  when  that  city  was  the  greatest  of  all 
gambling  places  on  earth,  it  was  no  unusual  thing  the  next 
morning,  in  the  woods  arountl  about  the  city,  to  find  the 
suspended  bodies  of  suicides.  Whatever  be  the  splendor  of 
surroundings,  there  is  no  excuse  for  this  crime.     The  thun- 


GAMBLING.  21$ 

ders  of  eternal  destruction  roll  in  the  deep  rumble  of  that 
gambling  tenpin-alley,  and  as  men  come  out  to  join  the  long 
procession  of  sin,  all  the  drums  of  death  beat  the  dead 
march  of  a  thousand  souls. 

A  merchant  came  from  the  far  west.  He  was  largely  in- 
fluential in  his  own  city.  Coming  to  New  York  he  went  into 
an  institution  of  that  kind  on  Park  Place,  and  before  morning 
he  had  lost  all  his  estate  save  one  dollar,  and  with  that  dollar 
he  walked  around  the  room,  and  then  seized  upon  by  this 
infernal  sorcery  he  again  approached  the  table  and  was  over- 
heard to  say  as  he  put  his  dollar  down  :  "  One  thousand 
miles  from  home  and  my  last  dollar  on  a  gaming  table  !"  O ! 
it  is  merciless. 

It  is  estimated  that  in  this  neighborhood  of  cities  there 
are  three  tJioiisand  jive  Jiitndred prof essed gamblers.  As  much 
as  it  is  your  business  to  sell  goods,  or  doctor  the  sick,  or 
plead  the  law,  or  import  goods,  or  manufacture,  or  carry  on 
your  trade,  just  so  much  it  is  their  business  to  despoil  so- 
ciety. In  all  these  cities  'during  these  years,  how  many  of 
the  gambling  establishments  have  ever  professed  to  be  hon 
est  ?  Nine.  These  nine  professedly  honest  gambling  estab- 
lishments are  only  the  antechamber  to  those  acknowledged 
to  be  fraudulent.  There  are  the  first-class  gambling  establish- 
ments taking  down  hundreds  of  our  young  men,  hundreds  of 
our  older  men.  You  go  a  little  out  of  Broadway,  and  you  go 
up  marble  stairs  and  ring  the  bell,  and  a  liveried  servant 
comes  to  the  door  and  introduces  you.  The  walls  are  laven- 
der tinted.  There  is  a  piece  of  furniture  very  costly,  most 
exquisite  and  wonderful,  its  value  so  great  I  cannot  compute 
it.  It  is  the  roulette  table.  Here  is  the  banqueting  room. 
Free  drinks,  free  cigars,  free  fruits,  free  everything — sump- 
tuous beyond  all  parallel.  Pictures  on  the  wall  of  Jephtha's 
daughter  and  Dante's  "frozen  region  of  hell,"  a  most  appro- 
priate picture. 

Pass  on,  and  you  come  to  the  second-class  gambling  estab- 
lishments of  our  cities.  You  are  introduced  by  a  card  of 
some  "  roper  in."  Once  fairly  inside,  you  must  either  gam- 
ble or  fight.    Sanded  cards,  dice  loaded  with  quicksilver,  poor 


2l6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

drinks  mixed  with  more  poor  drinks  soon  help  you  to  get  rid 
of  your  money  to  a  tune  in  short  meter  with  no  staccato 
passages  !  You  went  in  to  see.  You  saw  !  Does  not  a 
panther  squatting  in  the  grass  know  a  calf  when  he  sees  it  ? 
Wrangle  not  in  that  place  for  your  rights,  or  your  wounded 
body  will  be  thrown  into  the  street,  or  your  dead  body  pulled 
out  of  the  East  River. 

You  pass  on  and  you  come  to  what  are  ordinarily  called 
pool  rooms.  There  is  betting  on  numbers.  Betting  on  two 
numbers  is  called  a  "  saddle,"  betting  on  three  numbers  is 
called  a  "  gig,"  betting  on  four  numbers  is  called  a  "horse," 
and  thousands  of  men  spring  into  that  "saddle,"  and  mount 
that  "  gig,"  and  behind  that  "  horse"  ride  to  perdition  !  The 
sign  says  "  Exchange."  Wonderfully  significant  sign — "  Ex- 
change ;"  for  that  is  where  a  man  gives  up  his  respectability, 
gives  up  his  money,  gives  up  his  morals,  gives  up  his  soul, 
and  gets  in  exchange  loss  of  hope,  loss  of  respectability,  loss 
of  decency,  loss  of  family,  loss  of  Heaven.  "  Exchange  !" 
Infinite  exchange.    Awful  exchange.    Everlasting  exchange. 


FASCINATIONS   OF   THE   GAME. 

I  have  crossed  the  ocean  eight  times,  and  always  one  of 
the  best  rooms  has,  from  morning  till  late  at  night,  been 
given  up  to  gambling  practices.  I  heard  of  many  men  who 
went  on  board  with  enough  money  for  a  European  excursion, 
who  landed  without  enough  money  to  get  their  baggage  up 
to  the  hotel  or  railroad  station.  To  many  there  is  a  com- 
plete fascination  in  games  of  hazard  or  the  risking  of  money 
on  possibilities.  It  seems  as  natural  for  them  to  bet  as  to 
eat.  Indeed  the  hunger  for  food  is  often  overpowered  with 
the  hunger  for  wagers,  as  in  the  case  of  Lord  Sandwich,  a 
persistent  gambler,  who  not  being  willing  to  leave  the  dice 
table  long  enough  for  the  taking  of  food,  invented  a  prepa- 
ration of  food  that  he  could  take  without  stopping  the  game; 
namely,  a  slice  of  beef  between  two  slices  of  bread,  which 
was  named  after  Lord  .Sandwich. 


GAMBLING.  2\y 

It  is  absurd  for  those  of  us  who  have  never  felt  the  fasci- 
nation of  the  wager  to  speak  sHghtingly  of  the  temptation. 
It  has  slain  a  multitude  of  intellectual  and  moral  giants,  men 
and  women  stronger  than  you  or  I.  Down  under  its  power 
went  glorious  Oliver  Goldsmith,  and  Gibbon  the  historian, 
and  Charles  Fox  the  statesman ;  and  in  olden  times  famous 
senators  of  the  United  States,  who  used  to  be  as  regularly 
at  the  gambling-house  all  night,  as  they  were  in  the  halls  of 
legislation  by  day.  Oh,  the  tragedies  of  the  faro  table  !  I 
know  persons  who  began  with  a  slight  stake  in  a  lady's  par- 
lor, and  ended  with  the  suicide's  pistol  at  Monte  Carlo. 
They  played  with  the  square  pieces  of  bone  with  black 
marks  on  them,  not  knowing  that  Satan  was  playing  for 
their  bones  at  the  same  time,  and  was  sure  to  sweep  all  the 
stakes  off  on  his  side  of  the  table. 

A  great  many  Christian  peoplewonder  why  it  is  that  men 
of  wealth  and  men  of  refinement,  and  men  of  education,  as 
fine-looking  people  as  we  have  in  these  cities,  go  down  into 
this  evil.  Why,  my  friends,  it  is  easily  explained.  A  great 
many  people  are  born  with  a  passion  for  hazard.  It  is  a  joy 
to  them  to  go  near  a  precipice.  They  climb  Jungfrau  not 
for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  vastness  of  the  landscape,  but 
for  the  feeling,  "what  would  happen  if  I  should  fall  ofT  ?" 
There  are  persons  whose  blood  is  filliped  and  accelerated  by 
skating  near  an  air-hole.  There  are  people  who  find  a  joyful 
feeling  in  driving  within  two  inches  of  the  edge  of  a  bridge. 
Do  not  blame  such  people.  Only  blame  them  for  the  way 
in  which  they  develop  or  put  down  that  passion.  "  Oh," 
says  one  of  that  temperament,  "here  are  $500;  I'll  stake 
them  ;  I  may  lose,  but  I  may  gain  $5000,  and  ifs  excitement 
anyzvayy  Shuffle  the  cards.  Lost !  Heart  thumps.  Head 
dizzy.  Never  mind,  it  is  excitement.  So  they  go  on  with 
the  play  and  they  go  on  down.  That  is  the  history  of 
thousands  of  people.  And  are  we  to  spend  our  time  talking 
about  the  sins  of  the  Hittites,  Jebusites  and  Girgashites,  and 
the  Ahabs  and  the  Jezebels  of  the  past,  when  we  have  these 
monarchs  of  iniquity  destroying  the  land  ? 


2l8  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


COVETOUSNESS. 


Others  are  led  into  this  great  and  absorbing  evil  through 
sheer  desire  of  gain.  It  is  especially  so  with  professed  gam- 
blers. They  always  keep  cool.  They  never  drink  until  their 
brain  is  unbalanced,  or  their  judgment  is  overthrown.  They 
see  not  so  much  the  dice  as  the  dollar  beyond  the  dice.  They 
are  as  the  spider  in  the  web,  looking  as  if  dead  until  the  fly 
passes.  There  are  hundreds  of  young  men  who  say:  "  Now, 
I  don't  in  this  ofifice,  store  or  factory,  get  enough  salary;  I 
ought  to  have  a  room  in  a  better  boarding-house  or  better 
hotel ;  I  ought  to  have  better  wines ;  I  ought  to  have  finer 
cigars;  I  ought,  when  people  banquet  me,  be  able  to  ban- 
quet them,  and  I  am  going  to  endure  this  no  longer.  I  will 
with  one  bright  stroke  make  my  fortune.  Here  goes,  right 
or  v/rong,  principle  or  no  principle,  Heaven  or  hell.  Who 
cares?" 

When  a  young  man  or  an  older  man  resolves  to  live 
beyond  his  means,  Satan  has  bought  Jiini  out  and  out,  and  it 
is  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  goods  shall  be  delivered. 
The  thing  is  done.  You  may  plant  in  his  way  all  the  bat- 
teries of  truth  and  righteousness,  he  will  press  right  on. 
If  a  man  have  a  thousand  dollars  of  income  and  he  spend 
twelve  hundred,  if  he  have  fifteen  hundred  and  spend  two 
thousand,  if  he  have  three  thousand  and  spend  five  thousand, 
all  the  powers  of  darkness  say,  "Aha!  aha!  we  have  him." 
And  they  have.  The  extra  five  hundred  or  the  extra  two 
thousand  or  the  extra  five  thousand  dollars  must  be  obtained 
some  way. 

Here  is  a  young  man  who  says :  "  There's  my  friend 
who  came  to  town  with  no  money  at  all,  and  see  how  he's 
got  on  !  He  went  into  one  of  those  places  and  put  a  certain 
amount  of  money  on  the  ace ;  he  has  now  his  hundreds,  his 
thousands,  and  his  tens  of  thousands,  and  here  I  am  nothing 
but  a  poor  clerk."  What  a  dull  business  this  is,  adding  up 
this  long  line  of  figures  in  a  counting-house.     What  a  dull 


GAMBLING.  2ig 

business,  taking  down  fifty  yards  of  cloth  to  sell  one  rem- 
nant. What  a  dull  business  this  is,  my  waiting  on  other 
people  when  I  might  put  a  hundred  on  the  ace  and  take  up 
a  thousand.  What  is  the  use?  It  is  so  insidious, this  temp- 
tation. Other  sins  beat  the  drum,  or  flaunt  the  flag,  or 
gather  their  recruits  with  huzza ;  but  this  one  marches  its 
pale  processions  on  down,  and  when  they  drop  into  the 
grave  there  is  not  so  much  as  the  sound  of  the  click  of  dice. 

O,  how  many  noble  natures  have  perished  under  the 
power !  That  grand  forehead  is  licked  by  a  tongue  of  flame 
that  shall  never  be  extinguished.  Into  that  heart  there  are 
vulturous  beaks  plunged  which  shall  never  be  lifted.  Open 
the  door  of  that  man's  soul  and  see  the  coil  of  adders 
writhing  their  indescribable  horrors  until  you  turn  away  and 
hide  your  face  and  beg  God  to  help  you  forget  it. 

The  bad  thing  about  all  this  is  that  the  most  of  the  evil, 
the  most  of  the  calamity  goes  unadvertised.  The  men  who 
lose  money  in  gambling  generally  say  nothing  about  it. 
They  do  not  want  their  families  to  know,  they  do  not  want 
the  Church  of  God  to  know,  they  do  not  want  the  world  to 
know,  and  so  I  suppose  in  ninety  cases  out  of  a  hundred 
when  a  man  loses  money  in  gambling  he  hushes  it  up. 

Once  in  a  while  there  is  an  exception,  as  where  the  police 
of  Boston  some  years  ago  broke  in  upon  a  gaming  establish- 
ment and  found  there  some  of  the  first  merchants  of  State 
Street,  clear  down  to  the  Ann  Street  gambler;  as  when 
Bullock,  the  cashier  of  the  Georgia  Central  Railroad,  was 
found  to  have  purloined  $103,000  for  gambling  purposes  ;  as 
when,  many  years  ago,  in  one  of  the  savings-banks  of  Brook- 
lyn, a  young  man  was  found  to  have  stolen  $40,000  to  carry 
on  gaming  practices ;  as  when  in  Wall  Street,  a  man  in  an 
insurance  company  was  found  years  ago  to  have  stolen 
$180,000  to  carry  on  gaming  practices.  But  these  are  ex 
ccptions.  The  general  rule  is  that  in  silence  the  money 
leaks  out  of  the  merchant's  till,  or  out  of  the  fireproof  safe  of 
the  bank  into  the  wallet  of  the  srambler. 


220  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


ECCLESIASTICAL   GAMBLING. 

The  Church  of  God  has  not  seemed  wiUing  to  allow  the 
world  to  have  all  the  advantage  of  these  games  of  chance. 
A  church  fair  opens,  and  toward  the  close  it  is  found  that 
some  of  the  more  valuable  articles  are  unsalable.  Forth- 
with, the  conductors  of  the  enterprise  conclude  that  they 
\\\\\  raffle  for  some  of  the  valuable  articles,  and,  under  pre- 
tence of  anxiety  to  make  their  minister  a  present  or  please 
some  popular  member  of  the  church,  fascinating  persons  are 
dispatched  through  the  room,  pencil  in  hand,  to  "  solicit 
shares,"  or  perhaps  each  draws  for  his  own  advantage,  and 
scores  of  people  go  home  with  their  trophies,  thinking  that 
it  is  all  right,  for  Christian  ladies  did  the  embroidery  and 
Christian  men  did  the  raffling,  and  the  proceeds  went  toward 
a  new  communion  set.  But  you  may  depend  on  it,  that  as 
far  as  morality  is  concerned,  you  might  as  well  have  won  by 
the  crack  of  the  billiard-ball  or  the  turn  of  the  dice-box.  Do 
you  wonder  that  churches  built,  lighted,  or  upholstered  by 
such  processes  as  that  come  to  great  financial  and  spiritual 
decrepitude?  The  devil  says  :  "  I  helped  to  build  that  house 
of  worship,  and  I  have  as  much  right  there  as  you  have ;" 
and  for  once  the  devil  is  right.  We  do  not  read  that  they 
had  a  lottery  for  building  the  church  at  Corinth,  or  at  An- 
tioch,  or  for  getting  up  an  embroidered  surplice  for  St.  Paul. 
All  this  I  style  ecclesiastical  gambling.  More  than  one  man 
who  is  destroyed  can  say  that  his  first  step  on  the  wrong 
road  was  when  he  won  something  at  a  church  fair. 


PARLOR   CARD-PLAYING. 

I  will  not  judge  other  men's  consciences,  but  I  tell  you 
that  cards  are  in  my  mind  so  associated  with  the  temporal 
and  eternal  damnation  of  splendid  young  men,  that  I  should 
no  sooner  say  to  my  family,  "  Come  let  us  have  a  game  of 
cards,"  than  I  w(mi1c1  go  into  a  menagerie  and  say:  "  Come, 


GAMBLING.  221 

let  us  have  a  game  of  rattlesnakes,''  or  into  a  cemetery,  and 
sitting  down  by  a  marble  slab,  say  to  the  grave-diggers : 
"Come,  let  us  have  a  game  of  skulls." 

[The  Editor  adds,  that  parlor  card-playing  has  often  proved  a  step- 
ping-stone to  gambling.  A  skilful  parlor-player  in  Huntington,  L.  I., 
N.  y.,  took  $300  to  Princeton  College,  and  soon  lost  all  at  the  gaming- 
table, and  sent  home  for  more.  ] 

TERRIBLE   TALE. 

John  Borak  was  sent  out  as  a  commercial  agent  to  Bremen 
and  to  the  United  States.  After  two  years  had  gone  by  the 
house  which  sent  him  began  to  suspect  there  was  something 
wrong.  They  made  investigation  and  found  that  he  had 
spent  $86,000  in  gambling  saloons ;  $29,000  in  Lombard 
Street,  London  ;  $10,000  in  Fulton  Street,  New  York  ;  $3000 
in  New  Orleans,  and  other  thousands  elsewhere.  He  was 
caught,  tried,  condemned,  imprisoned;  but  he  broke  out  of 
the  penitentiary,  went  into  the  gambling  business,  and  died 
a  lunatic  in  an  insane  asylum.  There  never  was  a  business 
strong  enough  to  endure  this  evil  habit. 

PERILOUS  TO   BUSINESS. 

This  crime  is  getting  its  lever  under  many  a  mercantile 
house  in  our  cities,  and  before  long  down  will  come  the 
great  establishment,  crushing  reputation,  home  comfort  and 
immortal  souls.  How  it  diverts  and  sinks  capital  may  be  in- 
ferred from  some  authentic  statements  before  us.  The  ten 
gaming  houses  that  once  were  authorized  in  Paris  pass 
through  the  banks  yearly  three  hundred  and  twenty-five 
millions  of  francs. 

TRAP  AND   TRICKERY. 

The  gambling  spirit  has  not  stopped  for  any  trap  and 
trickery.  Why,  in  the  very  shufHing  of  the  cards  there  are 
deception  and  tricks.  How  often  it  is  that  by  fraud  the 
player  knows  what   is  in  his  opponent's  hand.     A   skilful 


222  TA'i'MPET  PEALS. 

gamester  has  aceomplices,  and  one  wink  decides  the  game. 
The  cards  arc  so  marked  that  from  the  back  they  may  be 
designated.  Dice  are  loaded  with  pkitina,  and  these  are  put 
into  the  game  unknown  to  the  honest  player,  and  that  is  the 
reason  that  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  thousand 
gamblers,  though  they  may  start  with  wealth,  at  the  end  are 
so  poor  and  miserable  and  wretched  that  they  would  not  be 
allowed  to  sit  on  the  door-step  of  the  brown-stone  front  that 
they  once  owned. 

FOUL   PLAY. 

In  a  gaming-house  in  San  Francisco,  a  young  man  hav- 
ing just  come  from  the  mines  deposited  a  large  sum  upon 
the  ace,  and  won  twenty-two  thousand  dollars.  But  the  tide 
turns.  Intense  anxiety  comes  upon  the  countenances  of  all. 
Slowly  the  cards  go  forth.  Every  eye  is  fixed.  Not  a  sound 
is  heard  until  the  ace  is  revealed  favorable  to  the  bank. 
There  are  shouts  of  "  Foul !  Foul !  "  but  the  keepers  of  the 
table  produce  their  pistols,  and  the  uproar  is  silenced,  and 
the  bank  has  won  ninety-five  thousand  dollars.  Do  you  call 
this  a  game  of  chance  ?     There  is  no  chance  about  it. 

AN   ESTATE   IN   A   DICE-BOX. 

A  young  man  having  suddenly  inherited  a  large  property, 
sits  at  the  hazard  tables,  and  takes  up  in  a  dice-box  the  estate 
won  by  a  father's  lifetime's  sweat,  and  shakes  it,  and  tosses 
it  away. 

AN    INFERNAL   SPELL. 

The  gambler  may  be  eaten  up  by  the  gambler's  passion. 
You  only  discover  it  by  the  greed  in  his  eyes,  the  hardness 
of  his  features,  the  nervous  restlessness,  the  threadbare  coat, 
and  his  embarrassed  business.  Yet  he  is  on  the  road  to  hell, 
and  no  preacher's  voice,  or  startling  warning,  or  wife's  en- 
treaty, can  make  him  stay  for  a  moment  his  headlong  ca- 
reer.   The  infernal  spell  is  on  him  ;  a  giant  is  aroused  within  ; 


GAMBLING.  223 

and  though  you  bind  him  with  cables,  they  would  part  like 
thread,  and  though  you  fasten  him  seven  times  round  with 
chains,  they  would  snap  like  rusted  wire  ;  and  though  you 
pile  up  in  his  path  heaven-high  Bibles,  tracts,  and  sermons, 
and  on  the  top  should  set  the  cross  of  the  Son  of  God,  over 
them  all  the  gambler  would  leap  like  a  roe  over  the  rocks,  on 
his  way  to  perdition.     "  Aceldama,  the  field  of  blood  !" 

Take  warning !  You  are  no  stronger  than  tens  of  thou- 
sands who  have  by  this  practice  been  overwhelmed.  I  have 
seen  the  whirling  and  the  foam,  and  have  heard  the  hissing 
beneath,  and  I  have  seen  the  mangled  wretches  writhing  one 
upon  another,  and  they  strangled,  and  they  struggled,  and 
they  blasphemed,  and  they  cursed  God,  and  they  died.  The 
death-stare  of  eternal  despair  on  their  countenances  as  the 
waters  gurgled   over  them. 

To  the  gambler  s  deathbed  there  comes  no  hope.  He  will 
probably  die  unattended.  The  men  who  destroyed  him  will 
not  come  and  ring  the  bell  and  ask  how  he  is.  They  will 
not  attend  the  obsequies.  Some  day  his  poor  body  is  being 
carted  out  to  the  Potter's  Field,  and  the  wretches  look 
out  of  the  window  of  the  gambling  saloon,  and  say;  "  There 
goes  the  old  carcass.  Dead  at  last !"  Let  him  down  into 
the  grave.  Plant  no  tree  there  for  shade.  The  eternal 
glooms  that  hover  over  the  spot  are  shadow  enough.  Visit 
not  that  grave  in  the  sunlight,  for  that  would  seem  like 
mockery,  but  in  the  dismal  night,  when  no  stars  are  out,  and 
spirits  of  darkness  come  down  horsed  on  the  wind.  Then  is 
the  time  to  visit  the  grave  of  the  gambler.  May  God  save 
you  from  the  scathing,  scalding,  blasting,  damning  influence 
of  the  gaming  spirit ! 

AN   ENEMY   TO   THE   HOME. 

Notice  the  effect  of  this  crime  upon  domestic  happiness. 
It  has  sent  its  ruthless  ploughshare  through  hundreds  of 
families,  until  the  wife  sat  in  rags,  and  the  daughters  were 
disgraced,  and  the  sons  grew  up  to  the  same  infamous  prac- 
tices, or  took  a  short  cut  to  destruction  across  the  murderer's 


224  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

scaffold.  Home  has  lost  all  charms  for  the  gambler.  How 
tame  are  the  children's  caresses  and  a  wife's  devotion  to  the 
gambler  !  How  drearily  the  fire  burns  on  the  domestic 
hearth  !  There  must  be  louder  laughter,  and  something  to 
win,  and  something  to  lose;  an  excitement  to  drive  the 
heart  faster,  fillip  the  blood  and  fire  the  imagination.  No 
home,  however  bright,  can  keep  back  the  gamester.  The 
sweet  call  of  love  bounds  back  from  his  iron  soul,  and  all 
endearments  are  consumed  in  the  fire  of  his  passion.  The 
family  Bible  will  go  after  all  other  treasures  are  lost,  and  if 
his  crown  in  heaven  were  put  into  his  hand  he  would  cry : 
"  Here  goes  ;  one  more  game,  my  boys.  On  this  one  throw 
I  stake  my  crown  of  heaven." 


ANOTHER   VICTIM. 

A  young  man  in  London,  on  coming  of  age,  received  a 
fortune  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dollars,  and 
through  gambling,  in  three  years,  was  thrown  on  his  mother 
for  support.  An  only  son  went  to  New  Orleans.  He  was 
rich,  intellectual,  and  elegant  in  manners.  His  parents  gave 
him,  on  his  departure  from  liomc,  their  last  blessing.  The 
sharpers  got  hold  of  him.  They  flattered  him.  They  lured 
him  to  the  gaming-table  and  let  him  win  almost  every  time 
for  a  good  while,  and  patted  him  on  'the  back  and  said, 
"  First-rate  player."  But  fully  in  their  grasp  they  fleeced 
him,  and  his  thirty  thousand  dollars  were  lost.  Last  of  all, 
he  put  up  his  watch  and  lost  that.  Then  he  began  to  think 
of  his  home,  and  of  his  old  father  and  mother,  and  wrote 
thus  : 

**  My  beloved  parents,  you  will  doubtless  feel  a  momentary 
joy  at  the  reception  of  this  letter  from  the  child  of  your 
bosom,  on  whom  you  have  lavished  all  the  favors  of  your 
declining  years.  But,  ah!  alas  !  cherish  it  not.  I  have  fallen 
deep,  never  to  rise.  Those  gray  hairs  that  I  should  have 
honored  and  protected,  I  shall  bring  down  in  sorrow  to  the 
grave.    I  will  not  curse  my  destroyer,  but  O  may  God  avenge 


GAMBLING.  225 

the  wrongs  and  impositions  practised  upon  the  unwary  in  His 
own  way ! 

This,  my  dear  parents,  is  the  last  letter  you  will  ever  re- 
ceive from  me.  I  humbly  pray  for  forgiveness.  It  is  my 
dying  prayer.  Long  before  you  have  received  this  letter 
from  me,  the  cold  grave  will  have  closed  upon  me  forever. 
Life  to  me  is  insupportable.  I  cannot,  nay,  I  will  not,  suffer 
the  shame  of  having  ruined  you.  Forget  and  forgive,  is  the 
dying  prayer  of  your  unfortunate  son." 

The  old  father  went  to  the  post-office  for  the  letter.  He 
opened  the  letter,  and  after  he  had  read  a  little  way  he 
dropped  upon  the  floor.  The  people  thought  he  was  dead, 
but  they  fanned  him,  and  they  pushed  back  the  gray  locks 
from  his  brow,  and  they  found,  after  a  while,  that  he  had 
only  fainted.  "  I  wish  he  had  been  dead,  for  what  is  life  to 
a  father  since  his  son  is  destroyed."  When  things  go  wrong 
at  a  gaming-table,  they  cry  "  Foul !  foul !"  Over  all  the 
gambling  saloons  of  Brooklyn  and  New  York  and  the  whole 
earth,  I  cry,  "  Foul,  foul,  infinitely  foul  !"  Beware  of  the 
first  beginnings  !  This  road  is  a  down-grade,  and  every  in- 
stant increases  the  momentum.  Launch  not  upon  this 
treacherous  sea.  Split  hulks  strew  the  beach.  Everlasting 
storms  howl  up  and  down,  tossing  unwary  crafts  into  the 
Hell-gate. 


CHOICE   OF   ROAD. 

When  I  go  to  Chicago  I  am  sometimes  perplexed  at  Buf- 
falo, as  I  suppose  many  travellers  are,  as  to  whether  it  is 
better  to  take  the  Lake  Shore  route  or  the  Michigan  Cen- 
tral, equally  expeditious  and  equally  safe,  getting  to  their 
destination  at  the  same  time.  But  suppose  that  I  hear  that 
on  one  route  the  track  is  torn  up,  the  bridges  are  down,  and 
the  switches  are  unlocked,  it  will  not  take  me  a  great  while 
to  decide  which  road  to  take.  Now,  here  are  two  roads  in 
the  future — the  Christian  and  the  unchristian,  the  safe  and 
the  unsafe.  Any  institution  or  any  association  that  confuses 
my  ideas  in  regard  to  that  fact  is  a  bad  institution  and  a  bad 


226  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

association.  1  had  prayers  before  I  joined  that  society,  did 
I  have  them  afterward  ?  I  attended  the  house  of  God  before 
I  connected  m}'self  with  that  union,  do  I  absent  myself  from 
religious  influences  ? 

Which  would  you  rather  have  in  your  hand  when  you 
come  to  die — a  pack  of  cards  or  a  Bible  ?  Which  would  you 
rather  have  pressed  to  your  lips  in  the  closing  moment — the 
cup  of  Belshazzarean  wassail  or  the  chalice  of  Christian  com- 
munion ?  Whom  would  you  rather  have  for  your  pall-bear- 
ers— the  elders  of  a  Christian  church  or  the  companions 
whose  conversation  was  full  of  slang  and  innuendo?  Whom 
would  you  rather  have  for  your  eternal  companions — those 
men  who  spend  their  evenings  betting,  gambling,  swearing, 
carousing,  and  telling  vile  stories,  or  your  little  child,  that 
bright  girl  whom  the  Lord  took  ?  When  the  Bridge  at  Ash- 
tabula broke,  and  let  down  the  most  of  the  carload  of  passen- 
gers to  instant  death,  Mr.  P.  P.  Bliss  was  seated  on  one  side  of 
the  aisle  of  the  car  writing  down  a  Christian  song  which  he 
was  composing,  and  on  the  other  side  a  group  of  men  were 
playing  cards.  Whose  landing-place  in  eternity  would  you 
prefer — that  of  P.  P.  Bliss,  the  Gospel  singer,  or  that  of  the 
gambler? 

TEN  PINS. 

Professed  gamesters  come  into  the  ten-pin  alley  where 
there  are  husbands  and  fathers,  and  brothers,  and  sons,  and 
put  down  a  thousand  dollars  in  gold  eagles.  Let  the  boy  set 
up  the  pins  at  the  other  end  of  the  alley.  Clear  the  way 
now.  Roll  the  first.  There  !  it  strikes.  Down  goes  respect- 
ability. Roll  the  second.  There  !  it  strikes.  Down  goes 
the  last  feeling  of  humanity.  Roll  the  third.  There !  it 
strikes.  Down  goes  the  soul,  the  immortal  soul.  It  was  not 
so  much  the  pins  that  fell  as  the  soul,  the  soul  ! 

RAPID   TRANSIT  TO   PERDITION. 

Alas  !  alas  !  there  are  those  who  have  already  taken  hold 
on  death.  They  arc  in  the  rapids.  They  try  to  put  back. 
Then   the\-  are   hurled    over  the   edge,  and  they  clutch  the 


GAMBLING.  22/ 

side  of  the  boat  until  tlicir  finger-nails,  blood-tipped,  pierce 
the  wood,  and  with  pale  cheek  and  agonized  stare,  and  hor- 
ror lifting  the  hair  from  the  scalp,  they  go  down  into  depths 
from  which  no  grappling  hooks  will  ever  drag  them  out.  O 
men  !  beware  if  you  have  begun  to  tamper  with  this  vice. 

THE   CAREER   OF   THE   GAMBLER. 

Lured  by  bad  company,  he  finds  his  way  into  a  place 
where  honest  men  ought  never  to  go.  He  sits  down  to  his 
first  game,  but  only  for  pastime  and  the  desire  of  being 
thought  sociable.  The  players  deal  out  the  cards.  They 
unconsciously  play  into  Satan's  hands,  who  takes  all  the 
tricks  and  both  the  players'  souls  for  trumps — he  being  a 
sharper  at  any  game.  A  slight  stake  is  put  up,  just  to  add 
interest  to  the  play.  Game  after  game  is  played.  Larger 
stakes  and  still  larger.  They  begin  to  move  nervously  on 
their  chairs.  Their  brows  lower,  and  eyes  flash,  until  now 
they  who  win  and  they  who  lose,  fired  alike  with  passion,  sit 
with  set  jaws,  and  compressed  lips,  and  clenched  fists,  and 
eyes  like  fireballs  that  seem  starting  from  their  sockets  to 
see  the  final  turn  before  it  comes;  if  losing,  pale  with  envy 
and  tremulous  with  unuttered  oaths  cast  back  red-hot  upon 
the  heart ;  or,  if  winning,  with  hysteric  laugh — "  Ha,  ha  !  I 
have  it !" 

A  few  years  have  passed,  and  he  is  only  the  wreck  of  a 
man.  Seating  himself  at  the  game,  ere  he  throws  the  first 
card,  he  stakes  the  last  relic  of  his  wife — the  marriage-ring 
which  sealed  the  solemn  vows  between  them.  The  game  is 
lost,  and  staggering  back  in  exhaustion  he  dreams.  The 
bright  hours  of  the  past  mock  his  agony,  and  in  his  dreams 
fiends  with  eyes  of  fire  and  tongues  of  flame  circle  about  him 
with  joined  hands,  to  dance  and  sing  their  orgies  with  hell- 
ish chorus,  chanting  :  "  Hail,  brother  !"  kissing  his  clammy 
forehead  until  their  loathsome  locks  flowing  with  serpents, 
crawl  into  his  bosom,  and  sink  their  sharp  fangs  and  suck  up 
his  life's  blood,  and  coiling  around  his  heart  pinch  it  with 
chills  and  asonies  unutterable. 


228  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


AFFECTIONATE  APPEAL. 

This  is  not  an  abstract  subject.  I  have  seen  so  many  go 
down  !  There  are  places  where  if  you  go  to  a  cHff  and  cast 
a  stone,  you  can  hear  it  far  down  echo  on  the  rocks.  There 
are  other  places  where  the  plunge  is  so  great  that  if  you 
take  something  and  throw  it  down  you  may  listen  and  listen 
and  listen,  but  there  comes  back  no  echo  of  the  fall.  And 
this  last  has  been  the  case  in  many  a  moral  calamity.  Oh, 
young  man,  what  is  your  great  want  ?  One  man  says  it  is 
higher  social  position  ;  another  man  says  it  is  larger  salary  ; 
another  man  says  it  is  easier  work.  I  do  not  know  what 
your  other  wants  are,  but  I  will  tell  you,  my  brother,  what 
your  greatest  want  is — if  you  do  not  already  possess  it — and 
that  is  the  grace  of  God. 

There  may  be  those  who  have  fallen  under  this  evil. 
You  are  in  a  prison.  You  feel  it.  You  have  tried  to 
get  out.  You  cannot  get  out.  If  I  should  have  your  per- 
sonal confidence  and  talk  this  matter  over,  you  would  say, 
"  I  can't  get  out  of  that  prison."  From  other  habits  men 
seem  to  get  away  by  the  force  of  natural  resolution  some- 
times ;  but  from  this  habit  I  do  not  think  any  man  gets  away 
by  the  force  of  natural  resolution.  You  want  to  get  out  of 
the  prison  and  you  rush  against  the  iron  bars  on  one  side 
and  you  do  not  escape.  And  then  you  soliloquize,  and  think 
and  think,  and  then  you  rush  against  the  other  side  the 
cage  and  against  the  iron  bars,  and  there  is  blood  on  the 
bars  and  blood  on  your  soul,  and  you  do  not  escape.  But 
there  is  a  key  that  will  unlock  that  door.  It  is  a  key  of  the 
house  of  David  ;  it  is  a  key  that  Christ  wears  at  His  girdle. 

O  prodigals,  it  is  a  poor  business  for  you  to  be  feeding 
swine  when  your  father  stands  in  the  front  door  straining  his 
eyesight  to  see  the  return  of  the  prodigal,  and  the  calf  in  the 
paddock  is  as  fat  as  it  ever  can  be  for  the  celebration,  and 
all  the  harps  of  Heaven  are  strung,  and  the  feet  free.  There 
are  converted  gamblers  in  Heaven.  Light  from  the  throne 
of  God  flashed  upon  the  green  baize  of  their  billiard  saloon. 


GAMBLING.  229 

They  stopped  trying  for  earthly  stakes,  and  they  tried  for 
Heaven  and  won  it. 

There  is  a  hand  to-day  stretched  out  from  Heaven  toward 
the  worst  man  in  this  audience.  It  is  not  a  hand  clenched 
as  if  to  strike ;  it  is  a  hand  outspread  as  though  to  drop  a 
benediction.  Other  seas  have  a  shore  and  maybe  fathomed, 
but  not  so  the  sea  of  God's  love.  Eternity  has  no  plummet 
to  strike  the  bottom,  and  immensity  has  no  iron-bound  shore 
to  confine  it.  Its  tides  are  lifted  by  the  great  heart  of  God's 
compassion.  But,  alas !  for  the  man  who  sits  down  to  the 
last  game  of  life  and  puts  his  immortal  soul  on  the  ace,  and 
M'hen  the  kings  and  queens  and  knaves  and  spades  have  been 
shuffled  and  cut  and  the  game  is  ended,  hovering  and  im- 
pending worlds  discover  that  he  has  lost  the  game,  and  the 
faro  of  eternal  darkness  clutches  down  into  its  wallet  all  the 
blood-stained  wagers.     Oh,  come  home  to  thy  God  to-day. 

STOCK-GAMBLING. 

The  great  business  disasters  of  this  country  have  come 
from  the  work  of  godless  speculators  and  infamous  stock- 
gamblers.  The  great  foe  to  business  in  New  York  and 
Brooklyn  is  crime.  When  the  right  shall  have  hurled  back 
the  wrong,  and  shall  have  purified  the  commercial  code,  and 
shall  have  thundered  down  fraudulent  establishments,  and 
shall  have  put  into  the  hands  of  honest  men  the  keys  of 
business,  blessed  time  for  the  bargain-makers.  I  am  not 
talking  an  abstraction,  I  am  not  making  a  guess.  I  am  tell- 
ing you  God's  eternal  truth. 

WALL    STREET. 

Across  the  island  of  New  York,  in  1685,  a  wall  made  of 
stone  and  earth,  and  cannon-mounted,  was  built  to  keep  off 
the  savages.  Along  by  that  wall  a  street  was  laid  out,  and 
as  the  street  followed  the  line  of  the  wall,  it  was  appropri- 
ately called  Wall  Street.  It  is  narrow,  it  is  short,  it  is  un- 
architectural,    and    yet    its   history    is    unique.     Excepting 


230  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Lombard  Street,  London,  it  is  tJic  mightiest  street  on  this 
planet.  There  the  Government  of  the  United  States  was 
born.  There  Washington  held  his  levees.  There  Mrs. 
Adams  and  other  brilliant  women  of  the  Revolution  dis- 
played their  charms.  There  Witherspoon  and  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  George  Whitefield  sometimes  preached. 
There  Dr.  INLason  chided  Alexander  Hamilton  for  writing 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  without  any  God  in  it. 

There  negroes  were  sold  in  the  slave-mart.  There  crim- 
inals were  harnessed  to  wheelbarrows,  and,  like  beasts  of 
burden,  compelled  to  draw,  or  were  lashed  through  the 
street  behind  carts  to  which  they  were  fastened.  There  for- 
tunes have  come  to  coronation  or  burial,  since  the  day  when 
reckless  speculators,  in  powered  hair  and  silver  shoe-buckles, 
dodged  Dugan,  the  Governor-General  of  his  Majesty,  clear 
down  to  yesterday  at  three  o'clock. 

The  history  of  Wall  Street  is  to  a  certain  extent  the  fi- 
nancial, commercial,  agricultural,  mining,  literary,  artistic, 
moral,  and  religious  history  of  this  country.  Only  a  few 
blocks  long,  it  has  reached  from  the  Canadas  to  the  Gulf  of 
'Mexico,  from  San  P^rancisco  to  Bangor.  There  are  the  best 
men  in  this  country,  and  there  arc  the  worst.  Every  thing, 
from  unswerving  integrity  to  tip-top  scoundrelisjii — every 
thing,  from  heaven-born  charity  to  bloodless  Sliylockism. 

I  want  to  put  the  plough  in  at  the  curbstone  of  Trinity 
and  drive  it  clear  through  to  Wall  Street  Ferry  ;  and  so  it 
shall  go,  if  the  horses  are  stron;^  enough  to  draw  the  plough. 

Wall  Street  stands  as  a  t}'pe  of  tried  integrity  and  tJie 
most  outrageous  villainy.  Farmers  who  have  only  a  few  hun- 
dred dollars'  worth  of  produce  to  put  on  the  market  have 
but  little  to  test  their  character  ;  but  put  a  man  into  the 
seven-times-heated  furnace  of  Wall  Street  excitement,  and 
he  either  comes  out  a  Shadrach.  with  hair  unsinged,  or  he  is 
burned  into  a  black  moral  cinder.  No  half-way  work  about 
it. 

It  is  as  honest  to  deal  in  stocks  as  to  deal  in  iron,  or  coal, 
or  hardware,  or  dry-goods.  He  who  condemns  all  stock- 
dealings  as    though  they  were   inicpiities  simply  sht)\vs  his 


GAMBLING.  23 1 

own  ignorance.  Stop  all  legitimate  speculation  in  this  coun- 
try, and  you  stop  all  banks,  you  stop  all  factories,  you  stop 
all  storehouses,  you  stop  all  the  great  financial  prosperities 
of  this  country. 

A  stock-dealer  is  only  a  commission-merchant  under  an- 
other name.  He  gets  his  commission  on  one  style  of  goods. 
You,  the  grocer,  get  your  commission  on  another  style  of 
goods.  The  dollar  that  he  makes  is  just  as  bright  and  fair 
and  honest  a  dollar  as  the  dollar  earned  by  the  day  laborer. 

If  I  wanted  to  find  integrity  bomb-proof,  I  would  go 
among  the  bankers  and  merchants  of  Wall  Street  ;  yet,  be- 
cause there  have  been  such  villainies  enacted  there  at  differ- 
ent times,  some  men  have  supposed  that  it  is  a  great  finan- 
cial debauchery,  and  they  hardly  dare  go  near  the  street,  or 
walk  up  and  down  it,  unless  they  have  buttoned  up  their 
pockets,  and  had  their  lives  insured,  or  religiously  crossed 
themselves. 

Yet,  if  you  start  at  either  end  of  the  street,  and  read  che 
business  signs,  you  will  find  the  names  of  more  men  of  in- 
tegrity and  Christian  benevolence  than  you  can  find  in  the 
same  space  in  any  street  of  any  of  our  cities. 

When  the  Christian  Commission  and  the  Sanitary  Com- 
mision  wanted  money  to  send  medicines  and  bandages  to  the 
wounded,  when  bread-stuffs  were  wanted  for  famishing  Ire- 
land, when  colleges  were  to  be  endowed  and  churches  were 
to  be  supported,  and  missionary  societies  were  to  be  equipped 
for  their  work  of  sending  the  Gospel  all  around  the  world, 
the  first  street  to  respond  has  been  Wall  Street,  and  the 
largest  responses  in  all  the  land  have  come  from  Wall  Street. 

I  have  not  so  much  admiration  for  the  French  Empress 
who  stood  in  her  balcony  in  Paris,  and  addressed  an  excited 
mob  and  quelled  it,  as  I  have  admiration  for  that  venerable 
banker  on  Wall  Street  who,  in  1864,  stood  on  the  steps  of 
his  moneyed  institution  and  quieted  the  fears  of  depositors, 
and  bade  peace  to  the  angry  wave  of  commercial  excitement. 
"  God  did  not  allow  the  lions  to  hurt  Daniel,  and  He  will 
not  allow  the  '  bears  '  to  hurt  you." 

But  while  that  street  is  a  type  of  tried  integrity  on  the 


232  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

one  hand,  it  is  also  a  type  of  unbounded  swindle  or\  the  other. 
There  arc  the  spiders  that  wait  for  innocent  flies.  There 
are  the  crocodiles  that  crawl  up  through  the  slime  to  cranch 
the  calf.  There  are  the  anacondas,  with  lifted  loop,  ready 
to  crush  the  unwary.  There  are  financial  wreckers,  who 
stand  on  the  beach  praying  for  a  Caribbean  whirlwind  to 
sweep  over  our  commercial  interests. 

And  here  zve  must  draw  the  line  between  legitimate  spec- 
ulation and  ruinous  gambling.  You,  a  stock  operator  with- 
out any  property  behind  you,  financially  irresponsible,  sell 
one  hundred  dollars  of  nothing  and  get  paid  for  it.  You 
sell  one  hundred  shares  at  ten  thousand  dollars  at  thirty 
days.  If  at  the  end  of  thirty  days  you  can  get  the  scrip  for 
nine  thousand  dollars,  you  have  made  a  thousand.  If  at  the 
end  of  thirty  days  you  have  to  pay  eleven  thousand,  then 
you  have  lost  a  thousand.  Now  that  is  trafificking  in  fiction, 
that  is  bettering  chances,  that  involves  the  spirit  of  gambling 
as  much  as  anything  that  ever  goes  on  in  the  lowest  gam- 
bling hell  of  New  York  or  Brooklyn. 


DOINGS  IN  WALL  STREET. 

"Riches  certainly  make  themselves  wings;  they  fly  away  as  an 
eagle  toward  heaven.  "—Proverbs  23  :  5. 

[The  Editor  adds  :  "  He  that  getteth  riches,  and  not  by  right,  shall 
leave  them  in  the  midst  of  his  days,  and  at  his  end  shall  be  a  fool." 
Jere.  17  :  II.] 

Money  is  a  golden-breasted  bird  with  silver  beak.  It 
alights  on  the  of¥ice-dcsk,  or  in  the  counting-room,  or  on  the 
parlor  centre-table.  Men  and  women  stand  and  admire  it. 
They  do  not  notice  that  it  has  wings  larger  than  a  raven's 
larger  than  a  flamingo's,  larger  than  an  eagle's.  One  wave 
of  the  hand  of  misfortune  and  it  spreads  its  beautiful  plumage 
and  is  gone — "  as  an  eagle  toward  heaven,"  though  sometimes 
I  think  it  goes  in  the  other  direction  ! 


GAMBLING.  233 


INFLATION   AND   COLLAPSE. 

What  verification  we  have  had  of  the  flying  capacity  of 
riches  in  Wall  Street  !  Encouraged  by  the  revival  of  trade, 
and  by  the  fact  that  Wall  Street  disasters  of  other  years  were 
so  far  back  as  to  be  forgotten,  speculators  ran  up  the  stocks 
from  point  to  point  until  innocent  people  on  the  outside  sup- 
posed that  the  stocks  would  always  continue  to  ascend. 

They  gathered  in  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Large 
sums  of  money  were  taken  into  Wall  Street,  and  small  sums 
of  money.  The  crash  came,  thank  God,  in  time  to  warn  off 
a  great  many  who  were  on  their  way  thither  ;  for  tJie  sadness 
of  the  thing  was  that  a  great  many  of  the  young  men  of 
our  cities  who  had  saved  a  little  money  for  the  purpose  of 
starting  themselves  in  business,  and  who  had  $500,  or  $1,000, 
or  $2,000,  or  $10,000,  went  into  Wall  Street  and  lost  all. 
Stocks  rose  and  fell  and  ruined  !  And  my  counsel  is  to  invest 
in  first  mortgages  and  in  Government  bonds,  and  to  stand 
clear  of  the  Wall  Street  vortex,  where  so  many  have  been 
swamped  and  swallowed.  What  a  compliment  it  is  to  the 
healthy  condition  of  our  country  that  these  disasters  in  no 
wise  depress  trade  !  I  thank  God  that  Wall  Street's  capacity 
to  blast  this  country  is  gone  forever. 

And  let  me  say  it  is  no  place  for  a  man  to  go  into  business 
unless  his  moral  principle  is  thoroughly  settled.  That  is  no 
place  for  a  man  to  go  into  business  who  does  not  know  when 
he  is  overpaid  five  dollars  by  mistake,  whether  he  had  better 
take  it  back  again  or  not.  That  is  no  place  for  a  man  to  go 
who  has  large  funds  in  trust,  and  who  is  all  the  time  tempted 
to  speculate  with  them.  That  is  no  place  for  a  man  to  go 
who  does  not  quite  know  whether  the  laws  of  State  forbid 
usury  or  patronize  it. 

O  how  many  men  have  risked  themselves  in  the  vortex 
and  gone  down,  for  the  simple  reason  that  their  integrity  had 
not  been  thoroughly  established.  Remember  poor  Ketcham, 
how  soon  the  flying  hoofs  of  his  iron  grays  clattered  with 
him  to  destruction.     Remember  poor  Gay,  at  thirty  years  of 


234  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

age  astonishing  the  world  with  his  fortunes  and  his  forgeries. 
Remember  that  famous  man  whose  steamboats  and  whose 
opera-houses  could  not  atone  for  his  adulterous  rides  through 
Central  Park  in  the  face  of  decent  New  York,  and  whose 
behavior  on  Wall  Street,  by  its  example,  has  blasted  tens  of 
thousands  of  young  men  of  this  generation. 

I  hold  up  the  polluted  memory  to  warn  young  men,  whose 
moral  principles  are  not  thoroughly  settled,  to  keep  out  of 
Wall  Street.  It  is  no  place  for  a  man  who  shivers  under  the 
blast  of  temptation.  Let  me  say  also  to  those  who  arc  do- 
in<T  legitimate  business  on  that  or  similar  streets  of  which 
that  is  a  type,  to  stand  firm  in  Christian  principle.  You  are 
in  a  great  commercial  battle-field.  Be  courageous.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  hero  of  the  Bank  and  a  hero  of  the  Stock 
Exchange.     Be  you  that  hero. 


FASCINATIONS   OF  STOCK-GAMBLING. 

At  certain  times,  almost  every  prosperous  merchant 
wakes  up,  and  says :  "  Now,  I  have  been  successful  in  my 
line  of  trade,  and  I  have  a  tolerable  income ;  I  think  I  shall 
go  down  to  Wall  Street  and  treble  it  in  three  weeks.  There's 
my  neighbor.  He  was  in  the  same  line  of  business  ;  he  has 
his  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  from  the  simple 
fact  that  he  w^ent  into  Wall  Street.     I  think  I  shall  go  too." 

Here  they  come,  retired  merchants,  who  want  to  get  a 
little  excitement  in  their  lethargic  veins.  Here  the)'  come, 
the  trustees  of  great  property,  to  fool  evcrj'thing  away. 
Here  they  come,  men  celebrated  for  prudence,  to  trifle  with 
the  livelihoods  of  widows  and  orphans.  Do  you  wonder 
that  sometimes  they  become  insane  ?  It  is  insanity.  Uo 
}'ou  know,  there  are  hundreds  of  }-oung  men  in  Brooklyn 
and  New  York  who  are  perishing  under  the  passion  for  stock- 
gambling?  Do  you  know  that  in  all  Christian  lands  this  is 
one  of  the  greatest  curses? 

You  know  that  for  years  men  have  been  made  heroes  of 
and  pictorialized  and  in  various  styles  presented  to  the  pub- 


GAMBLING.  235 

lie,  as  though  sometimes  they  were  worthy  of  admiration  if 
they  have  scattered  the  funds  of  banks,  or  swallowed  great 
estates  that  did  not  belong  to  them.  A  different  measure 
has  been  applied  to  the  crime  of  Wall  Street  from  that 
which  has  been  applied  to  the  spoils  which  the  man  carries 
up  Rat  Alley. 

And  our  young  men  have  been  dazed  with  this  quick 
accumulation.  They  have  said :  "That's  the  way  to  do  it. 
What's  the  use  of  our  plodding  on  with  small  wages  or  in- 
significant salary,  when  we  may  go  into  business  life,  and 
with  some  stratagem  achieve  such  a  fortune  as  that  man  has 
achieved  ?" 

But  nearly  all  the  outsiders  who  go  there  on  a  little 
financial  excursion  lose  all.  The  old  spiders  eat  up  the  un- 
suspecting flies.  I  had  a  friend  who  put  his  hand  on  his  hip 
pocket  and  said  to  me  in  substance  :  "  I  have  there  the  value 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars."  His  home  is  to- 
day penniless.  What  was  the  matter?  Wall  Street.  Of 
the  vast  majority  who  are  victimized,  you  hear  not  one  word. 
One  great  stock  firm  goes  down,  and  whole  columns  of  news- 
papers discuss  their  fraud  or  their  disaster,  and  we  are  pre- 
sented with  their  features  and  their  biography.  But  where 
one  such  famous  firm  sinks,  five  hundred  unknown  men  sink 
with  them.  The  great  steamer  goes  down,  and  all  the  little 
boats  are  swallowed  in  the  same  engulfment.  Gambling  is 
gambling,  whether  in  stocks  or  bread-stuffs,  or  dice  or  race 
track  betting.  Exhilaration  at  the  start,  and  a  raving  brain 
and  a  shattered  nervous  system  and  a  sacrificed  property 
and  a  destroyed  soul  at  the  last. 

FAST   IN   THE   STOCKS. 

It  must  be  very  exhilarating  to  go  into  Wall  Street,  New 
York,  or  State  Street,  Boston,  or  Third  Street,  Philadelphia, 
and,  depositing  a  small  sum  of  money,  run  the  risk  of  taking 
out  a  fortune. 

One  of  the  main  pipes  to  this  sewer  of  iniquity  is  busi- 
ness excitement.     It  is  a  most  sigtiificant   fact  that  nearly 


236  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

all  the  day  gambling  establishments  in  New  York  were 
found  in  proximity  to  Wall  Street.  Men  went  into  the  ex- 
citement of  stock  gambling.  Getting  through  that  at  the 
close  of  business  they  went  into  other  places  of  gambling 
that  they  might  keep  up  the  excitement.  The  howling, 
stamping,  Bedlamitish  crew  of  the  old-fashioned  Gold  Room 
used  to  drop  into  the  gambling  saloons  around  about.  The 
agitation  in  the  Stock  Exchange  that  you  sometimes  saw  at 
the  announcement  of  the  word  "  North-western"  or  Rock 
Island  "  or  "  Erie"  or  "  New  York  Central ;"  the  rat-tat-tat 
of  the  auctioneer's  mallet,  the  excitement  of  making  "  cor- 
ners," and  establishing  "  pools,"  and  "carrying"  stock,  and  a 
"  break"  from  eighty  to  seventy,  and  the  excited  cry  of 
"buyer  three!"  "buyer  ten!"  "taken!"  "how  many?"  and 
the  loss  or  the  gain  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  dollars  in 
the  flash  of  a  moment  disqualifies  a  man  to  go  home,  and 
he  goes  into  gaming  establishments  near  by.  That  has 
been  the  past  history  of  a  great  many  men.  They  went  up 
the  stairs  amid  the  closed  business  offices  until  they  came  to 
the  room  darkly  curtained  and  wooden  shuttered,  but  richly 
furnished  inside,  and  took  their  places  at  the  roulette  or  the 
faro  table.  That  is  the  way  some  of  the  best  men  of  our 
great  cities  have  been  destroyed. 


RELIGION   IN   BUSINESS. 

O  men  of  Wall  Street,  and  of  all  streets,  stand  back  from 
nefarious  enterprises,  join  that  great  company  of  Christian 
men  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  who  are  maintaining  their 
integrity,  notwithstanding  all  the  pressure  of  temptation. 
In  the  morning,  when  you  open  business  in  the  broker's 
ofiice  or  in  the  banking-house,  ask  God's  blessing,  and  when 
you  close  it  pronounce  a  benediction  upon  it.  A  kind  of 
business  that  a  man  cannot  engage  in  with  prayer  is  no  busi- 
ness to  do. 

Remember,  my  friend,  that  all  these  scenes  of  business 
will  soon  have  passctl  away,  and  by  the  law  of  God's  eter- 


GAMBLING.  237 

nal  right  all  the  affairs  of  your  business  life  will  be  adjudi- 
cated.    Honesty  pays  best  for  both  worlds. 

Remember  that  the  man  who  gets  his  gain  by  iniquity 
will  soon  lose  it  all.  One  moment  after  his  departure  from 
life  he  will  not  own  an  opera  house,  he  will  not  own  a  cer- 
tificate of  stock. 

Stand  close  by  Christ,  and  Christ  will  stand  close  by  you. 
The  greater  the  temptation,  the  more  magnificent  the  re- 
ward. But,  alas !  for  the  stock-gambler — what  will  he  do  in 
the  judgment  ?  That  day  will  settle  everything.  That  to 
the  stock-gambler  will  be  a  "■  break"  at  the  "  first  call."  No 
smuggling  into  heaven.  No  ^^collaterals'  on  which  to  trade 
your  way  in.  Go  in  through  Christ,  the  Lord,  or  you  will 
forever  stay  out. 

After  you  have  done  your  last  day's  work  on  earth,  and 
the  hushed  assembly  stands  around  with  bowed  heads  at 
your  obsequies,  God  forbid  that  the  most  appropriate  text 
for  your  funeral  oration  should  be  "As  a  partridge  sitteth 
on  eggs  and  hatcheth  them  not,  so  he  that  getteth  riches, 
and  not  by  right,  shall  leave  them  in  the  midst  of  his  days, 
and  at  the  end  he  shall  be  a  fool." 

"  Price  of  many  a  crime  untold, 
Gold,  gold,  gold,  gold." 

STOCK-GAMBLING  A   LAUGHING-STOCK. 

**  He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh." 
With  such  demonstration  will  God  greet  every  kind  of 
great  sin  and  wickedness.  Bad  men  build  up  villainies 
higher  and  higher.  Good  men  almost  pity  God  because  He 
is  so  schemed  against  by  men.  Suddenly  a  pin  drops  out  of 
the  machinery  of  wickedness,  or  a  secret  is  revealed,  the 
foundation  begins  to  rock ;  final!}',  the  whole  thing  is  de- 
molished. What  is  the  matter  ?  I  will  tell  you  what  is  the 
matter.  That  crash  of  ruin  is  only  the  reverberation  of 
God's  laughter. 

On  Wall  Street  a  fraudulent  man  says :  "  I  mean  to  have 
my  million."     He  goes  to  work  reckless  of  honesty,  and  he 


238  Ti:UMPEr  PEALS. 

gets  his  first  $100,000.  He  gets  after  a  while  his  $200,000. 
After  a  while  he  gets  his  $500,000.  "  Now,"  he  says,  "  I 
have  only  one  more  move  to  make,  and  I  shall  have  my  mill- 
ion." He  gathers  up  all  his  resources;  he  makes  that  last 
grand  move,  he  fails  and  loses  all,  and  he  has  not  enough 
money  of  his  own  left  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  car  to  his  home. 
People  cannot  understand  this  spasmodic  revulsion.  Some 
say  it  was  a  turn  in  Erie  Railroad  stock,  or  in  Western 
Union,  or  in  Illinois  Central  ;  some  say  it  is  Jay  Gould  ; 
some  say  it  is  one  speculator,  some  another.  They  all  guess 
wrong.  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is:  "  He  that  sitteth  in  the 
heavens  laughs!" 

A  man  in  New  York  said  he  would  be  the  richest  man  in 
the  city.  He  left  his  honest  work  of  chair-making,  and  got 
into  the  city  councils  some  way,  and  in  ten  years  stole  fifteen 
million  dollars  from  the  city  government.  Fifteen  million 
dollars  I  He  held  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York 
in  the  grip  of  his  right  hand.  Suspicions  were  aroused. 
The  Grand  Jury  presented  indictments.  The  whole  land 
stood  aghast.  The  man  who  expected  to  put  half  the  city 
in  his  vest-pocket  goes  to  Blackwell's  Island ;  goes  to  Lud- 
low Street  Jail  ;  breaks  prison,  and  goes  across  the  sea  ;  is 
re-arrested  and  brought  back,  and  again  remanded  to  jail. 
Why?     "He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  laughs." 

Rome  was  a  great  empire  ;  she  had  Horace  and  Virgil 
among  her  poets;  she  had  Augustus  and  Constantine  among 
her  emperors.  But  what  mean  the  defaced  Pantheon,  and 
the  Forum  turned  into  a  cattle-market,  and  the  broken- 
walled  Colliseum,  and  the  architectural  skeleton  of  her  great 
aqueducts  ?  What  was  that  thunder  ?  "  Oh  !"  you  sa)',  "  that 
was  the  roar  of  the  battering-rams  against  her  walls."  No. 
What  was  that  quiver?  "Oh,"  you  say,  "that  was  the 
tramp  of  hostile  legions."  No.  The  quiver  and  the  roar 
were  the  outburst  of  omnipotent  laughter  from  the  defied 
and  insulted  heavens.  Rome  defied  God  and  He  laughed 
her  down.  Thebes  defied  God  and  He  laughed  her  down. 
Nineveh  defied  God  and  He  laughed  her  down.  Bab}-lon 
defied  God  and  He  laughed  her  down. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Amusements. 

It  is  the  anniversary  of  Herod's  birthday.  The  palace  is 
Hghted.  The  highways  leading  thereto  are  all  ablaze  with 
the  pomp  of  invited  guests.  Lords,  captains,  merchant 
princes,  the  mighty  men  of  the  land,  are  coming  to  mingle 
in  the  festivities.  The  table  is  spread  with  all  the  luxuries 
that  royal  purveyors  can  gather.  The  guests,  white-robed 
and  anointed  and  perfumed,  come  in  and  sit  at  the  table. 
Music  !  The  jests  evoke  roars  of  laughter.  Riddles  are 
propounded.  Repartee  is  indulged.  Toasts  are  drank.  The 
brain  is  befogged.  The  wit  rolls  on  into  uproar  and  blas- 
phemy. They  are  not  satisfied  yet.  Turn  on  more  light. 
Pour  out  more  wine.  Music !  Sound  all  the  trumpets. 
Clear  the  floor  for  a  dance.  Bring  in  Salome,  the  beautiful 
and  accomplished  princess.  The  door  opens,  and  in  bounds 
the  dancer.  The  lords  are  enchanted.  Stand  back  and 
make  room  for  the  brilliant  gyrations.  These  men  never 
saw  such  "poetry  of  motion."  Their  souls  whirl  in  the  reel 
and  bound  with  the  bounding  feet.  Herod  forgets  crown 
and  throne  and  everything  but  the  fascinations  of  Salome. 
All  the  magnificence  of  his  realm  is  as  nothing  now  com- 
pared with  the  splendor  that  whirls  on  tiptoe  before  him. 
His  body  sways  from  side  to  side,  corresponding  with  the 
motions  of  the  enchantress.  His  soul  is  thrilled  with  the 
pulsations  of  the  feet  and  bewitched  with  the  taking  postures 
and  attitudes  more  and  more  amazing.  After  awhile  he  sits 
in  enchanted  silence  looking  at  the  flashing,  leaping,  bound- 
ing beauty,  and  as  the  dance  closes  and  the  tinkling  cym- 
bals cease  to  clap  and  the  thunders  of  applause  that  shook 
the  palace  begin  to  abate,  the  enchanted  monarch  swears  to 

239 


240  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  princely  performer  :  "  Whatsoever  thou  shalt  ask  of  me 
I  will  give  it  thee,  to  the  half  of  my  kingdom."  Now,  there 
was  in  prison  at  that  time  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  by 
the  name  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  he  had  been  making 
a  great  deal  of  trouble  by  preaching  some  ver)^  plain 
and  honest  sermons.  He  had  denounced  the  sins  of  the 
king  and  brought  down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  the  females 
of  the  royal  household.  At  the  instigation  of  her  mother, 
Salome  takes  advantage  of  the  extra\agant  promise  of  the 
king  and  says,  "  Bring  me  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist  on  a 
dinner  plate."  Hark  to  the  sound  of  feet  outside  the  door 
and  the  clatter  of  swords.  The  executioners  are  returning 
from  their  awful  errand.  Open  the  door.  They  enter,  and 
they  present  the  platter  to  Salome.  What  is  on  this  platter? 
A  new  glass  of  wine  to  continue  the  uproarious  merriment  ? 
No.  Something  redder  and  costlier — the  ghastly,  bleeding 
head  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  death  glare  still  in  the  eye,  the 
locks  dabbled  with  the  gore,  the  features  still  distressed  with 
the  last  agony. 

This  woman,  who  had  whirled  so  gracefully  in  the  dance, 
bends  over  the  awful  burden  without  a  shudder.  She  gloats 
over  the  blood,  and  with  as  much  indifference  as  a  waiting- 
maid  might  take  a  tray  of  empty  glassware  out  of  the  room 
after  an  entertainment,  Salome  carries  the  dissevered  head 
of  John  the  Baptist,  while  all  the  banqueters  shout  with 
laughter,  and  think  it  a  good  joke  that  in  so  easy  and  quick 
a  way  they  have  got  rid  of  an  earnest  and  outspoken  minis- 
ter of  the  Gospel. 

Well,  there  is  no  harm  in  a  birthday  festival.  All  the 
kings  from  Pharaoh's  time  had  celebrated  such  occasions, 
and  why  not  Herod?  No  harm  in  kindling  the  lights.  No 
harm  in  spreading  the  banquet.  No  harm  in  arousing  music. 
But  from  the  riot  and  wassail  that  closed  the  scene  of  that 
day  every  pure  nature  revolts. 


AMU  SEMEN  TS.  24 1 


DANCING  UNIVERSALLY   POPULAR. 

Dancing  is  the  graceful  motion  of  the  body  adjusted  by- 
art  to  the  sound  and  measures  of  musical  instrument  or  of 
the  human  voice.  All  nations  have  danced.  The  ancients 
thought  that  Castor  and  Pollux  taught  the  art  to  the  Lace- 
daemonians. But  whoever  started  it,  all  climes  have  adopted 
it.  In  ancient  times  they  had  the  festal  dance,  the  military 
dance,  the  mediatorial  dance,  the  bacchanalian  dance,  and 
queens  and  lords  swayed  to  and  fro  in  the  gardens,  and  the 
rougfh  backwoodsman  with  this  exercise  awakened  the  echo 
of  the  forest.  There  is  something  in  the  sound  of  lively 
music  to  evoke  the  movement  of  the  hand  and  foot,  whether 
cultured  or  uncultured.  Passing  down  the  street  we  uncon- 
sciously keep  step  to  the  sound  of  the  brass  band,  while  the 
Christian  in  church  with  his  foot  beats  time  while  his  soul 
rises  upon  some  great  harmony.  While  this  is  so  in  civilized 
lands,  the  red  men  of  the  forest  have  their  scalp  dances, 
their  green-corn  dances,  their  war  dances. 

DANCING   IN   ANCIENT  TIMES. 

The  exercise  Avas  so  utterly  and  completely  depraved  in 
ancient  times  that  the  church  anathematized  it.  The  old  Chris- 
tian fathers  expressed  themselves  most  vehemently  against  it. 
St.  Chrysostom  says:  "  The  feet  were  not  given  for  dancing 
but  to  walk  modestly,  not  to  leap  impudently  like  camels." 
One  of  the  dogmas  of  the  ancient  church  reads  :  "A  dance  is 
the  devil's  possession,  and  he  that  entereth  into  a  dance  enter- 
eth  into  his  possession.  As  many  paces  as  a  man  makes  in 
dancing,  so  many  paces  does  he  make  to  hell."  Elsewhere 
the  old  dogmas  declared  this :  "  The  woman  that  singeth  in 
the  dance  is  the  princess  of  the  devil,  and  those  that  answer 
are  her  clerks,  and  the  beholders  are  his  friends,  and  the 
music  are  his  bellows,  and  the  fiddlers  are  the  ministers  of 
the  devil.  For  as  when  hogs  are  strayed,  if  the  hogsherd 
call  one  all  assemble  together,  so  when  the  devil  calleth  one 


242  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

woman  to  sing  in  the  dance,  or  to  play  on  some  musical  in- 
strument, presently  all  the  dancers  gather  together."  This 
indiscriminate  and  universal  denunciation  of  the  exercise 
came  from  the  fact  that  it  was  utterly  and  completely  de- 
praved. 

But  we  are  not  to  discuss  the  customs  of  the  olden  times, 
but  customs  now.  We  are  not  to  take  the  evidence  of  the 
ancient  fathers,  but  our  own  conscience,  enlightened  by  the 
Word  of  God,  is  to  be  the  standard. 

Sybaris  was  a  great  city,  and  it  once  sent  out  three  hun- 
dred horsemen  in  battle.  They  had  a  minstrel  who  had 
taught  the  horses  of  the  army  a  great  trick,  and  when  the 
old  minstrel  played  a  certain  tune  the  horses  would  rear  and 
with  their  front  feet  seem  to  beat  time  to  the  music.  Well, 
the  old  minstrel  was  offended  with  his  country,  and  he  went 
over  to  the  enemy,  and  he  said  to  the  enemy  :  "You  give 
me  the  mastership  of  the  army  and  I  will  destroy  their  troops 
when  those  horsemen  come  from  Sybaris.  So  they  gave  the 
old  minstrel  the  management,  and  he  taught  all  the  other 
minstrels  a  certain  tune.  Then  when  the  cavalry  troop  came 
up  the  old  minstrel  and  all  the  other  minstrels  played  a  cer- 
tain tune,  and  at  the  most  critical  moment  in  the  battle  when 
the  horsemen  wanted  to  rush  to  the  conflict,  the  horses  reared 
and  beat  time  to  the  music  with  their  forefeet,  and  in  dis- 
grace and  rout  the  enemy  fled."  Ah  !  my  friends,  I  have 
seen  it  again  and  again — the  minstrels  of  pleasure,  the  min- 
strels of  dissipation,  the  minstrels  of  godless  association  have 
defeated  people  in  the  hardest  fight  of  life.  Frivolity  has 
lost  the  battle  for  ten  thousand  folk. 

How  many  people  in  America  have  stepped  frovi  tJic 
ball-room  into  the  graveyard  !  Consumptions  and  swift  neu- 
ralgias are  close  on  their  track.  Amid  many  of  the  glitter- 
ing scenes  of  social  life  in  America  diseases  stand  right  and 
left  and  balance  and  chain.  The  breath  of  the  sepulchre 
floats  up  through  the  perfume,  and  the  froth  of  Death's  lip 
bubbles  up  in  the  champagne. 


AMUSEMENTS.  243 


A  BRILLIANT  VICTIM. 


In  my  parish  of  Philadelphia  there  was  a  young  woman 
brilliant  as  a  spring  morning.  She  gave  her  life  to  the  world. 
She  would  come  to  religious  meetings  and  under  conviction 
would  for  a  little  while  begin  to  pray,  and  then  would  rush 
off  again  into  the  discipleship  of  the  world.  She  had  all  the 
world  could  offer  of  brilliant  social  position.  One  day  a 
flushed  and  excited  messenger  asked  me  to  hasten  to  her 
house,  for  she  was  dying.  I  entered  the  room.  There  were 
the  physicians,  there  was  the  mother,  there  lay  this  disciple 
of  the  world.  I  asked  her  some  questions  in  regard  to  the 
soul.  She  made  no  answer.  I  knelt  down  to  pray.  I  rose 
again,  and  desiring  to  get  some  expression  in  regard  to  her 
eternal  interests,  I  said:  "Have  you  any  hope?"  and  then 
for  the  first  her  lips  moved  in  a  whisper  as  she  said :  "  No 
hope  !"  Then  she  died.  The  world,  she  served  it,  and  the 
world  helped  her  not  in  the  last. 

With  many  life  is  a  masquerade  ball,  and  as  at  such  en- 
tertainments gentlemen  and  ladies  put  on  the  garb  of  kings 
and  queens  or  mountebanks  or  clowns  and  at  the  close  put 
off  the  disguise,  so  a  great  many  pass  their  whole  life  in  a 
mask,  taking  off  the  mask  at  death.  While  the  masquerade 
ball  of  life  goes  on,  they  trip  merrily  over  the  floor,  gemmed 
hand  is  stretched  to  gemmed  hand,  gleaming  brow  bends  to 
gleaming  brow.  On  with  the  dance  !  Flush  and  rustle  and 
laughter  of  immeasurable  merry-making.  But  after  a  while 
the  languor  of  death  comes  on  the  limbs  and  blurs  the  eye- 
sight. Lights  lower.  Floor  hollow  with  sepulchral  echo. 
Music  saddened  into  a  wail.  Lights  lower.  Now  the  mask- 
ers are  only  seen  in  the  dim  light.  Now  the  fragrance  of  the 
flowers  is  like  the  sickening  odor  that  comes  from  garlands 
that  have  lain  long  in  the  vaults  of  cemeteries.  Lights  low- 
er. Mists  gather  in  the  room.  Glasses  shake  as  though 
quaked  by  sullen  thunder.  Sigh  caught  in  the  curtain. 
Scarf  drops  from  the  shoulder  of  beauty  a  shroud.  Lights 
lower.     Overthe  slippery  boards  in  dance  of  death  glide  jeal- 


244  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

ousics,  envies,  revenges,  lust,  despair,  and  death.  Stench  of 
lamp-wicks  almost  extinguished.  Torn  garlands  will  not 
half  cover  the  ulcerated  feet.  Choking  damps.  Chilliness. 
Feet  still.  Hands  closed.  Voices  hushed.  Eyes  shut. 
Lights  out. 

THE   THEATRE   AND   STAGE   COSTUMES. 

I  do  not  go  to  theatres,  so  I  must  take  the  evidence  of 
the  actors  and  managers  of  theatres,  such  as  Mr.  John  Gil- 
bert, Mr.  A.  M.  Palmer,  and  Mr.  Daniel  E.  Bandmann.  They 
have  told  us  that  the  crime  of  undress  is  blasting  the  theatre, 
which  by  many  is  considered  a  school  of  morals,  and  indeed 
superior  to  the  Church,  and  a  forerunner  of  the  millennium. 
Mr.  Palmer  says :  "  The  bulk  of  the  performances  on  the 
stage  are  degrading  and  pernicious.  The  managers  strive  to 
come  just  as  near  the  line  as  possible  without  flagrantly  break- 
ing the  law.  There  never  have  been  costumes  worn  on  a 
stage  of  this  city,  either  in  a  theatre,  hall,  or  '  dive,'  so  im- 
proper as  those  that  clothe  some  of  the  chorus  in  recent 
comic  opera  productions."  He  says  in  regard  to  the  female 
performers :  "  It  is  not  a  question  whether  they  can  sing,  but 
just  how  little  they  will  consent  to  wear."  Mr.  Bandmann, 
who  has  been  twenty-nine  years  on  the  stage,  and  before 
almost  all  nationalities,  says:  "I  unhesitatingly  state  that 
the  taste  of  the  present  theatre-going  people  of  America,  as 
a  body,  is  of  a  coarse  and  vulgar  nature.  The  Hindoo  would 
turn  w^ith  disgust  at  such  exhibitions,  which  are  sought  after 
and  applauded  on  the  stage  of  this  country.  Our  shop-win- 
dows are  full  of  and  the  walls  covered  with  show-cards  and 
posters  which  should  be  a  disgrace  to  an  enlightened  country 
and  an  insult  to  the  eye  of  a  cultured  community."  Mr. 
Gilbert  says:  "Such  exhibition  is  a  disastrous  one  to  the 
morals  of  the  community.  Are  these  proper  pictures  to  put 
out  for  the  public  to  look  at,  to  say  nothing  of  the  propriety  of 
females  appearing  in  public  dressed  like  that  ?  It  is  shame- 
ful!" 

I  must  take  the  testimony  of  the  friends  of  the  theatre 


AMUSEMENTS.  245 

and  the  confirmation  which  I  see  on  the  board  fences  and  in 
the  show-windows  containing  the  pictures  of  the  way  actresses 
dress.  I  suppose  that  those  representations  of  play-house 
costume  are  true,  for  if  they  are  not  true,  then  those  highly 
moral  and  religious  theatres  are  swindling  the  public  by  in- 
ducing the  people  to  the  theatre  by  promises  of  spectacular 
nudity  which  they  do  not  fulfil.  Now,  all  this  familiarizes 
the  public  with  such  improprieties  of  costume  and  depresses 
the  public  conscience  as  to  what  is  allowable  and  right. 

BEWARE   OF   CONTAMINATION. 

I  counsel  you  to  beware  lest  you  allow  the  dramatic  ele- 
ment in  human  nature  to  lead  you  into  contamination.  To 
gratify  that  one  taste  you  cannot  afford  to  sacrifice  your 
purity,  your  influence,  your  usefulness,  your  soul,  as  many 
have  done.  The  amusements  of  life  are  merely  the  inter- 
stices, the  parentheses,  the  interregnums  of  hard  work,  in 
preparation  for  other  hard  work.  He  who  hunts  for  amuse- 
ment and  makes  that  his  business,  is  like  a  man  who  hunts 
for  a  lost  diamond  among  rocks,  not  regarding  a  precipice 
near  by,  and  in  the  joy  of  finding  the  diamond  stumbles  five 
hundred  feet  off  and  down,  the  cormorants  and  the  sea-gulls 
only  knowing  where  he  perished. 

The  amusem.ents  of  life  cannot  pay  you  for  the  loss  of 
your  soul.  I  could  not  tell  your  character,  I  could  not  tell 
your  prospects  for  this  world  or  the  next  by  the  particular 
church  you  attend  ;  but  if  you  will  tell  me  where  you  were 
last  night,  and  where  you  were  the  night  before,  and  where 
you  have  been  the  nights  of  the  last  month,  I  think  I  could 
guess  where  you  will  spend  eternity. 

O  young  men,  I  cannot  but  think  of  the  immense  parental 
anxieties  which  hover  over  you.  "  Oh  !"  says  a  young  man, 
"  my  father  and  mother  are  dead."  That  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  think  they  are  not  watching  you.  Do  you  think 
that  when  your  mother  with  white  and  dying  lips  kissed  you 
good-by  and  went  up  to  God,  that  she  left  all  interest  for 
her  boy  behind  ?     Oh,  no!     I  suppose  she  has  as  much  in- 


246  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

tercst  in  you  now  as  she  ever  had.  I  do  not  believe  you  have 
offered  a  prayer  since  that  sad  day  that  she  has  not  stood 
somewhere  near,  saying,  "  That  is  right,"  or  that  you  have 
been  disposed  to  go  to  some  place  where  you  ought  not  to 
go,  that  she  has  not  stood  by  and  said,  "  Don't  go  there,  my 
dear  boy ;  that  is  wrong."  You  thought  it  was  the  sighing 
of  the  wind.     No.     It  was  your  mot Jicr. 

But  many  of  you  have  parents  living,  and  they  are  think- 
ing about  you  this  morning.  Perhaps  they  arc  away  off  in 
the  country;  but  I  warrant  you  they  are  thinking  of  you, 
planning  for  you,  wanting  to  hear  from  you,  expecting  great 
things  of  you.  They  may  not  say  much,  but  every  good  or 
bad  thing  they  hear  about  you  thrills  them  from  the  white 
hair  on  the  wrinkled  brow^  to  the  foot  that  will  soon  stop  in 
the  journey.  As  perhaps  no  one  else  will  tell  you  how  much 
your  parents  think  of  you,  I  will  tell  you. 

You  need  not  go  clear  back  to  see  how  much  Da\id 
thought  of  Absalom,  or  how  much  Hannah  did  for  Samuel, 
or  how  Rizpah  stood  driving  the  jackals  of  the  wilderness 
away  from  the  rock  on  which  her  dead  sons  lay.  I  am  talk- 
ing about  what  your  parents  think  of  you.  Oh,  disappoint 
not  their  expectations !  Do  not  forget  the  advice  they  gave 
you  that  last  morning;  do  not  go  anywhere  that  would  dis- 
please them  if  they  heard  it.  And  if  they  are  good,  perhaps 
you  had  better  try  their  religion. 

THE   DRAMA   OF   LIFE. 

As  to  the  drama  of  your  life  and  mine,  it  will  soon  end. 
There  will  be  no  oicorc  to  bring  us  back  after  the  curtain  has 
dropped.  At  the  beginning  of  that  drama  of  life  stood  a 
cradle  ;  at  the  end  of  it  will  stand  a  grave.  The  first  act, 
welcome.  The  last  act,  farewell.  The  intermediate  acts, 
banquet  and  battle,  processions  bridal  and  funeral,  songs  and 
tears,  laughter  and  groans. 

It  was  not  original  with  Shakespeare  when  he  said,  "All 
the  world's  a  stage,  and  all  the  men  and  wc^men  mcrel)*  pla}-- 
ers."     He  got  it  from  St.  Paul,  who,  fifteen  centuries  before 


AMUSEMENTS.  247 

that,  had  written,  "  We  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the  world, 
and  to  angels,  and  to  men."  A  spectacle  in  a  Coliseum  fight- 
ing with  wild  beasts  in  an  amphitheatre,  the  galleries  full, 
looking  down.  Here  we  destroy  a  lion.  Here  we  grapple 
with  a  gladiator.  When  we  fall,  devils  shout.  When  we 
rise,  angels  sing.  A  spectacle  before  gallery,  above  gallery, 
gallery  above  gallery.  Gallery  of  our  departed  kindred  look- 
ing down  to  see  if  we  are  faithful,  and  worthy  of  our  Chris- 
tian ancestry,  hoping  for  our  victory,  wanting  to  throw  us  a 
garland,  glorified  children  and  parents,  with  cheer  on  cheer 
urging  us  on.  Gallery  of  the  martyrs  looking  down — the 
Polycarps,  and  the  Ridleys,  and  the  M' Kails,  and  the  Theban 
Legion,  and  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  and  they  of  the  Brus- 
sels market-place,  and  of  Piedmont — crying  down  from  the 
galleries,  "  God  gave  us  the  victory,  and  He  will  give  it  you." 

Gallery  of  angels  looking  down — cherubic,  seraphic,  arch- 
angelic — clapping  their  wings  at  every  advantage  we  gain. 
Gallery  of  the  king  from  which  there  waves  a  scarred  hand, 
and  from  which  there  comes  a  sympathetic  voice,  saying, 
"  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown 
of  life."  Oh,  the  spectacle  in  which  you  and  I  are  the  actors  ! 
Oh,  the  piled-up  galleries  looking  down  ! 

Talk  about  the  exciting  scenes  in  a  theatre.  There  was 
never  anything  enacted  in  Haymarket  or  Drury  Lane  theatre 
equal  to  the  last  spectacular.  Scene,  the  last  day.  Stage, 
a  rocking  earth.  Enter  dukes,  lords,  kings,  clowns,  beggars. 
No  sword,  no  tinsel,  no  crown.  For  footlights,  the  kindling 
flames  of  a  world.  For  galleries,  the  clouds  filled  with  angels. 
For  orchestra,  the  trumpets  that  wake  the  dead.  For  ap- 
plause, the  clapping  floods  of  the  sea.  For  curtains,  the 
heavens  rolled  together  as  a  scroll.  For  last  scene  in  the 
fifth  act,  the  tramp  of  nations  across  the  stage — these  to  the 
right,  those  to  the  left.  "  Behold,  He  cometh  with  clouds, 
and  every  eye  shall  see  Him !" 


248  TR  UMPE  T,  PEA  L  S. 

TESTS  OF  AMUSEMENTS. 
"  Every  tree  is  known  by  his  own  fruit." — Luke  6:44. 

I  propose  to  lay  down  certain  rules  by  which  every 
person  in  this  house  may  decide  for  himself  what  is  right  and 
zuhat  is  lorong  in  the  way  of  amusements  and  recreations. 

The  first  test  I  want  you  to  apply  to  every  amusement 
is,  Has  it  a  healthful  influence,  or  a  baleful  reaction?  Ex- 
hilarant  and  rebounding  spirits  are  in  most  peril  of  going 
into  dangerous  amusements.  The  gayer  the  horse,  the  more 
important  to  have  a  stout  driver ;  the  swifter  the  ship,  the 
more  important  to  have  a  strong  helmsman  ;  and  all  these 
people  who  have  rebounding  and  exuberant  spirits  ought  to 
be  very  cautious,  and  discipline  themselves  into  the  right  style 
of  recreation  and  amusement. 

If  you  come  from  a  place  of  amusement  or  recreation  so 
nervous  you  cannot  sleep,  and  you  arise  in  the  morning,  not 
because  you  are  slept  out,  but  because  your  duty  drags  you 
from  your  pillow,  you  have  been  where  you  ought  not. 
There  are  amusements  that  send  one  to  the  practical  work 
of  life  bloodshot  and  yawning  and  stupid  and  nauseated. 
They  are  all  bad — all  that  style  of  amusement.  There  are 
amusements  that  disgust  one  with  the  drudgery  of  every- 
day life — with  tools  of  trade  because  they  are  not  swords ; 
with  work-aprons  because  they  are  not  robes;  with  the 
cattle  because  they  are  not  infuriated  bulls  of  the  arena. 

If  any  style  of  amusement  gives  you  a  longing  for  a  life 
of  romance  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  and  love  that  takes 
poison  and  shoots  itself,  and  makes  you  unpractical  in  the 
great  duties  of  life — those  amusements  ought  to  be  obnox- 
ious to  you  as  they  arc  obnoxious  to  God.  Our  recreations 
were  intended  to  build  us  up,  and  if  they  pull  us  down  in 
our  moral  or  physical  health,  they  are  bad  amusements  ;  and 
I  charge  you,  O  young  men !  steer  clear  of  them. 

Again  :  I  want  you  not  to  go  into  any  style  of  amuse- 
ment which  will  lead  }'Ou  into  expenditures  beyond  }-our 
means.      Money  spent  for  recreation  is  well  spent.      Do  not 


AMUSEMENTS.  249 

be  so  silly  as  to  come  from  a  place  of  innocent  recreation 
and  say,  "  Now  time  is  wasted  and  money  wasted."  It  may 
yield  you  more  profit  for  this  world  and  the  world  to  come 
than  money  that  has  brought  you  five  thousand  dollars  from 
an  investment. 

But,  oh,  how  many  properties  have  been  riddled  with 
costly  amusements !  TJie  table  has  been  robbed  to  pay  the 
club ;  the  champagne  has  drowned  the  boy's  primer ;  the 
table-cloth  of  the  corner  saloon  is  in  debt  to  the  wife's  faded 
dress ;  excursions  that  in  a  day  make  a  tour  clear  around  a 
month's  wages  ;  ladies  whose  lifetime  business  it  is  to  go  shop- 
ping— all  these  have  their  echo  in  bankruptcies  that  appall 
the  Church  and  shake  the  money-market,  and  send  drunk- 
enness, staggering  across  the  richly-figured  carpet  of  the 
mansion,  dashing  into  the  mirror  and  drowning  the  carol  of 
music  in  the  whooping  of  bloated  sons  come  home  to  break 
their  old  mother's  heart. 

They  that  go  into  amusements  that  they  cannot  afTord, 
first  borrow  what  they  cannot  earn,  and  then  they  steal 
what  they  cannot  borrow.  First  into  embarrassment,  then 
into  lying,  then  into  theft ;  and  when  a  man  gets  as  far  as 
that  he  does  not  stop  short  of  the  penitentiary.  There  are 
thousands  of  men  who  have  enough  salary  to  support  them 
and  support  their  families,  but  have  not  enough  salary  to 
support  their  expensive  amusements  ;  and  in  that  direction 
they  perish.  How  often  it  is  that  we  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
are  requested  to  go  over  to  New  York  and  beg  off  some 
young  man  who  has  made  a  false  entry  or  taken  money  from 
the  drawer  that  did  not  belong  to  him,  or  made  some  finan- 
cial shipwreck.  We  have  sometimes  been  successful  in  beg- 
ging him  off,  and  getting  the  firm  to  try  him  over  again,  to 
give  him  one  more  chance  before  he  is  sent  home  to  break 
his  mother's  heart ;  but  sometimes  we  have  not  succeeded 
so  well. 

O  merchants  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn !  if  there  be  a 
leakage  in  the  money-drawer,  if  the  cash  account  did  not 
come  out  last  night  aright,  if  there  be  something  in  the 
financial  management  of  your  store,  would  it  not  be  well  to 


250  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

look  to  see  if  you  have  not  in  your  employ  some  one  who  is 
a  victim  of  bad  amusements?  You  pay  enough  salary  to 
support  that  young  man — honorably  support  him  ;  but  the 
amusements  which  he  has  entered  into  cannot  be  supported 
'by  any  such  salary,  and  you  had  better  give  the  note  of 
warning  while  warning  may  be  of  some  good. 

Sinful  amusements  open  very  brightly.  The  young  man 
says,  "  Now  I'm  going  to  have  a  good  time.  I  don't  know 
whore  the  money's  coming  from,  but  I'll  get  it  somehow. 
Ah  !  what  a  beautiful  day  for  a  ride.  Crack  the  whip.  Away 
go  the  horses'  hoofs  racketing  over  the  turnpike.  Come,  my 
boys,  fill  high  the  glasses.  Drink!  Drink  to  health  !  Drink 
to  long  life  !  Drink  to  a  good  many  rides  like  this  !"  Young 
men  engaged  in  stores  or  shops  or  factories  look  out  of  the 
window  and  say,  "  I  wonder  where  that  young  man  gets  his 
money?  He  gets  no  more  salary  than  I  get.  I  can't  afford 
that :  how  can  he  afford  it  ?" 

Again  :  I  charge  you  not  to  make  avmsoncnt  your  lifetime 
business.  Life  is  an  earnest  thing.  I  do  not  care  whether 
you  have  been  born  in  palace  or  hovel,  affluent  or  pinched, 
you  have  got  to  work.  If  you  do  not  sweat  with  toil  you 
will  sweat  with  disease.  Besides  that,  you  have  a  soul 
which  is  to  be  transfigured  amid  the  pomps  of  a  judgment 
day;  and  after  the  sea  has  chanted  its  last  anthem,  and  the 
mountains  have  come  down  in  avalanche  of  rock,  you  will 
be  living  in  a  realm  where  seraphs  sing,  or  in  a  dungeon 
where  demons  howl. 

Alas  !  that  in  a  world  where  men  have  so  much  to  do  for 
themselves  and  so  much  to  do  for  others,  the}'  can  find 
nothing  to  do.  Our  amusements  are  only-  helps  to  hard 
work.  Amusement  is  the  bower  in  which  business  and 
philanthropy  rest  a  little  while  on  their  way  to  stirring 
achievement.  Amusements  are  the  vines  that  grow  up 
around  the  anvil  and  the  blossoming  of  the  hammers. 

Alas  for  the  man  who  spends  liis  life  in  laboriously  doing 
nothing — the  days  in  hunting  for  sport,  the  nights  in  seek- 
ing out  ^ovc\(z  gas-iighted  foolery  f  No  time  to  pray,  no  time 
to  work,  no  time  to  read.     Always  with  the  sporting-jacket 


AMUSEMENTS.  25 1 

on,  hunting  game  in  the  mountain  or  fish  in  the  brook — not 
half  so  well  off  the  man  as  the  greyhound  that  runs  at  his 
side,  or  the  fly-bait  with  which  he  whips  the  stream. 

Our  amusements  are  only  the  playing  of  the  orchestra 
while  the  tragedy  of  life  plunges  through  its  five  acts — in- 
fancy, childhood,  manhood,  old  age,  and  death.  Then  exit 
the  last  chance  for  mercy.  Enter  the  overwhelming  realities 
of  the  eternal  world. 

Again:  I  charge  you,  stand  clear  of  all  amusements 
which  lead  you  into  bad  company.  If  you  belong  to  an 
organization  where  you  have  to  meet  with  the  intemperate, 
or  the  unclean,  or  the  dishonest,  or  the  abandoned,  in  God's 
name  I  beg  you,  quit  it — quit  it.  I  never  knew  a  man  yet 
who  could  stand  evil  association  and  be  unhurt — never  one. 
Out  of  the  fourteen  hundred  millions  of  the  race  there  never 
was  one. 

If  your  duty  leads  you  among  bad  men,  God  will  take 
care  of  you.  If  your  style  of  work  day  by  day  carries  you 
among  those  who  are  bad,  God  knows  that,  and  He  will  take 
you  through  the  furnace,  and  you  will  be  unscorched.  But 
I  mean,  when  a  man  deliberately  chooses  bad  association  be- 
cause he  likes  it,  that  man  has  started  on  tJie  road  dozvn.  Oh, 
I  do  not  care  what  you  call  it,  that  association  will  despoil 
your  soul.  After  you  are  destroyed,  body,  mind,  and  soul, 
what  will  they  do  for  you  ?  what  will  they  do  for  your 
family?  They  will  not  give  one  cent  to  support  your  chil- 
dren after  you  are  dead.  They  will  not  weep  one  tear  at 
your  burial.     They  will  chuckle  over  your  damnation. 


AMUSEMENT  VERSUS  HOME. 

Once  more  :  I  want  you  to  stand  clear  from  all  amuse- 
ments which  interfere  with  your  home  happiness — all  amuse- 
ments that  destroy  domestic  happiness.  How  many  shat- 
tered homes  in  Brooklyn  !  Tens  of  thousands  in  the  United 
States  destroyed  by  sinful  amusements — homes  destroyed. 
The  father  went  off,  the  mother  went  off,  the  child  went  off. 
Is  there  such  a  wanderer  here?     I  should  like  to  charm  you 


252  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

homo  by  that  imperial  word — home  !  home  !  Do  you  know 
that  very  soon  you  will  be  done  with  your  home,  and  you 
cannot  bless  it?  Do  you  realize  that  soon,  oh  father,  your 
children  will  be  out  in  the  world,  and  all  the  influence  for 
good  you  have  to  bring  upon  them  you  must  bring  very 
soon  ?  Do  you  know  that  death  will  crash  in  and  break  up 
that  conjugal  relation  ?  And  alas  for  you  if  you  stand  by 
the  grave  of  one  who  perished  through  your  neglect ! 

I  saw  a  recreant  husband  stand  at  the  death-bed  of  his 
Christian  wife.  She  said  to  him,  ''Do  you  see  that  ring  f 
He  said,  "Yes,  I  see  it."  She  said,  "  Do  you  know  who  put 
that  ring  there  ?"  He  said,  "  Yes,  I  put  it  there  ;  that  is  the 
wedding-ring."  They  both  seemed  overwhelmed  with 
memories.  And  I  do  not  know  but  that  the  chain  of  influ- 
ences is  going  to  draw  you  home  and  draw  you  to  God  and 
Heaven:  I  do  not  know  but  that  long  chain  of  influences 
has  for  its  last  link  the  wedding-ring.  So  I  lay  hold  of  the 
rope,  I  lay  hold  of  the  chain,  and  I  pull  for  your  eternal  life. 
By  the  hour  when  you  stood  in  the  church,  or  in  the  house  at 
\.\\QZi<edding  oltar,  and  promised  to  be  faithful  until  death  did 
you  part,  in  sorrow  and  in  joy,  in  sickness  and  in  health  ;  by 
the  hour  when  you  sat  in  your  nezu  Jiome  planning  out  a 
bright  future  ;  by  the  cradle  and  the  glad  hour  when  one  life 
was  spared  and  another  given  ;  by  the  sick  bed  from  which  the 
little  one  lifted  the  hands,  and  you  knew  he  must  die,  and 
he  put  one  arm  around  father's  neck,  and  the  other  arm 
around  mother's  neck  and  bound  them  with  a  dying 
kiss ;  by  the  grave  you  can  never  think  of  without  a  rush 
of  tears ;  by  the  family  Bible,  where  amid  the  story  of 
heavenly  love  is  the  short  but  expressive  record  of  births 
and  deaths  ;  by  the  judgment-day,  where  husbands  and 
wives,  fathers  and  mothers,  in  immortal  groups  shall  rise  up 
in  shining  array  or  shrink  down  into  darkness — by  all  that, 
I  beg  you,  give  your  best  love  to  your  home. 

I  address  you  as  Gehazi  addressed  the  Shunammite, 
when  I  look  into  \our  faces  this  day,  and  say,  "  Is  it  well 
with  thee?  is  it  well  with  thy  husband?  is  it  well  with  the 
chilli?"   Go  forth,  then,  and  test  all   your  amusements  by 


A  M  U  SEMEN  TS.  253 

these  four  tests.  Be  happy  in  your  work.  Be  happy  in 
your  recreations.  When  there  are  so  many  innocent  amuse- 
ments, do  not  plunge  into  the  pernicious.  Do  not  stop 
your  ears  to  a  Heaven  full  of  songsters,  and  then  listen  to 
the  hiss  of  a  dragon.  Do  not  turn  your  back  upon  the 
mountain-side,  a-purple  with  wild  flowers  and  dashing  with 
nimble  streams,  to  go  with  blistered  feet  climbing  up  the  hot 
sides  of  fire-belching  Cotopaxi.  And  if  there  be  a  man  who 
is  leading  others  astray,  my  last  remark  is  to  you  :  Let  me 
say,  if  you  are  not  only  going  astray  yourself,  but  leading 
others  astray,  the  judgment  of  God  will  meet  you. 


CHAPTER  X. 
Social  Impurity. 

"  As  an  ox  to  the  slaughter." — Prov.  7  :  22, 

There  is  nothing  in  the  voice  or  manner  of  the  butcher 
to  indicate  to  the  ox  that  there  is  death  ahead.  The  ox 
thinks  he  is  going  on  to  a  rich  pasture-field  of  clover,  where 
all  day  long  he  will  revel  in  the  herbaceous  luxuriance  ;  but 
after  a  while  the  men  and  the  boys  close  in  upon  him  with 
sticks  and  stones  and  shouting,  and  drive  him  through  bars 
and  into  a  doorway,  where  he  is  fastened,  and  with  a  well- 
aimed  stroke  the  axe  fells  him  ;  and  so  the  anticipation  of  the 
redolent  pasture-field  is  completely  disappointed.  So  many 
a  young  man  has  been  driven  on  by  temptation  to  what  he 
thought  would  be  paradisiacal  enjoyment  ;  but  after  a  while 
influences  with  darker  hue  and  swarthier  arm  close  in  upon 
him,  and  he  finds  that  instead  of  making  an  excursion  into 
a  garden,  he  has  gone  "as  an  ox  to  the  slaughter." 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  high  time  that  pulpit  and  plat- 
form and  printing-press  speak  out  against  the  impurities  of 
modern  society.  Fastidiousness  and  Prudery  say  :  "  Better 
not  speak — you  will  rouse  up  adverse  criticism  ;  }'ou  will 
make  worse  what  you  want  to  make  better ;  better  deal  in 
glittering  generalities  ;  the  subject  is  too  delicate  for  polite 
ears."  But  there  comes  a  voice  from  heaven  overpowering 
the  mincing  sentimentalities  of  the  day,  saying :  "  Cry  aloud, 
spare  not,  lift  up  thy  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  show  my 
people  their  transgressions  and  the  house  of  Jacob  their 
sins." 

The  trouble  is  that  when  people  write  or  speak  upon  this 
theme  they  are  apt  to  cover  it  up  with  the  graces  of  belles- 
lettres,  so   that   the  crime  is  made  attractive  instead  of  rc- 

254 


SOCIAL   IMPURITY.  255 

pulsive.  Lord  Byron  in  "  Don  Juan"  adorns  this  crime  until 
it  smiles  like  a  May  queen.  Michelet,  the  great  French 
writer,  covers  it  up  with  bewitching  rhetoric  until  it  glows 
like  the  rising  sun,  when  it  ought  to  be  made  loathsome  as 
a  small-pox  hospital.  There  are  to-day  influences  abroad, 
which  if  unresisted  by  the  pulpit  and  the  printing-press  will 
turn  New  York  and  Brooklyn  into  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
fit  only  for  the  storm  of  fire  and  brimstone  that  whelmed 
the  cities  of  the  plain. 

A   CRUSADE   NEEDED. 

You  who  are  seated  in  your  Christian  homes,  compassed 
by  moral  and  religious  restraints,  do  not  realize  the  gulf  of 
iniquity  that  bounds  you  on  the  north  and  the  south  and 
the  east  and  the  west.  While  I  speak  there  are  tens  of 
thousands  of  men  and  women  going  over  the  awful  plunge 
of  an  impure  life;  and  while  I  cry  to  God  for  mercy  upon 
their  souls,  I  call  upon  you  to  marshal  in  the  defence  of  your 
homes,  your  Church,  and  your  nation. 

There  is  a  banqueting-hall  that  you  have  never  heard 
described.  You  know  all  about  the  feast  of  Ahasuerus, 
where  a  thousand  lords  sat.  You  know  all  about  Belshaz- 
zar's  carousal,  where  the  blood  of  the  murdered  king  spurted 
into  the  faces  of  the  banqueters.  You  may  know  of  the  scene 
of  riot  and  wassail  when  there  was  set  before  Esopus  one 
dish  of  food  that  cost  $400,000.  But  I  speak  now  of  a  dif- 
ferent banqueting-hall.  Its  roof  is  fretted  with  fire.  Its  floor 
is  tessellated  with  fire.  Its  chalices  are  chased  with  fire.  Its 
song  is  a  song  of  fire.  Its  walls  are  buttresses  of  fire.  Solo- 
mon refers  to  it  when  he  says :  "  Her  guests  are  in  the 
depths  of  hell." 

LIBERTINISM. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  fascination  thrown  around 
libertinism.  Society  is  very  severe  upon  the  impurity  that 
lurks  around   the  alleys  and  low  haunts  of  the  town.     The 


256  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

law  pursues  it,  smites  it,  incarcerates  it,  tries  to  destroy 
it.  You  know  as  well  as  I  that  society  becomes  lenient  in 
proportion  as  impurity  becomes  affluent  or  is  in  elevated 
circles,  and  finally  society  is  silent,  or  disposed  to  palliate. 
Where  is  the  judge,  the  jury,  the  police  officer  that  dare 
arraign  the  wealthy  libertine  ?  He  walks  the  streets,  he  rides 
the  parks,  he  flaunts  his  iniquity  in  the  eyes  of  the  pure. 
The  hag  of  uncleanness  looks  out  of  the  tapestried  window. 
Where  is  the  law  that  dares  take  the  brazen  wretches  and 
put  their  faces  in  an  iron  frame  of  a  State's  prison  window  ? 

Sometimes  it  seems  to  mc  as  if  society  were  going  back 
to  the  state  of  morals  of  Hcrculancum,  when  it  sculptured 
its  vileness  on  pillars  and  temple  wall,  and  nothing  but  the 
lava  of  a  burning  mountain  could  hide  the  immensity  of 
crime.  At  what  time  God  will  rise  up  and  extirpate  these 
evils  upon  society  I  know  not,  nor  whether  He  will  do  it  by 
fire,  or  hurricane,  or  earthquake  ;  but  a  Holy  God  I  do  not 
think  will  stand  it  much  longer.  I*  believe  the  thunderbolts 
are  hissing  hot,  and  that  when  God  comes  to  chastise  the 
community  for  these  sins,  against  which  He  has  uttered 
Himself'  more  bitterly  than  against  any  other,  the  fate  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  will  be  tolerable  as  compared  with 
the  fate  of  our  modern  society,  which  knew  better,  but  did 
worse. 

We  want  about  ten  thousand  pulpits  in  America  to  thunder: 
"  All  adulterers  and  whoremongers  shall  have  their  place  in 
the  lake  which  burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone  ;  which  is  the 
second  death."  It  is  hell  on  earth  and  hell  forever.  We 
have  got  to  understand  in  Brooklyn,  and  New  York,  and  all 
parts  of  this  land  that  iniquity  on  Madison  Square,  of 
Brooklyn  Heights,  or  Beacon  Hill  is  as  damnable  in  the 
sight  of  God  as  it  is  in  the  slums.  Whether  it  has  canopied 
couch  of  eider-down,  or  dwells  amid  the  putridity  of  a  low 
tenement  house,  God  is  after  it  in  His  vengeance.  Yet  the 
pulpit  of  the  Christian  Church  has  been  so  cowed  down  on 
this  subject  that  it  hardly  dares  speak,  and  men  are  almost 
apologetic  when  they  read  the  Ten  Commandments. 


SOCIAL   IMPURITY.  2^J 


FREE-LOVEISM. 


Our  American  communities  are  suffering  from  the  gospel 
of  Free  Loveism,  which,  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago,  was 
preached  on  some  of  the  platforms  of  this  country.  1 
charge  upon  Free  Loveism  that  it  has  blighted  innumerable 
homes,  and  that  it  has  sent  innumerable  souls  to  ruin.  Free 
Loveism  is  bestial ;  it  is  worse — it  is  infernal.  It  has  fur- 
nished this  land  with  about  one  thousand  divorces  annually. 
In  one  county  in  the  State  of  Indiana  it  furnished  eleven 
divorces  in  one  day  before  dinner.  It  has  roused  up  elope- 
ments, North,  South,  East,  and  West.  You  can  hardly  take 
up  a  paper  but  you  read  of  an  elopement.  As  far  as  I  can 
understand  the  doctrine  of  Free  Loveism  it  is  this  :  that  every 
man  ought  to  have  somebody  else's  wife,  and  every  wife 
somebody  else's  husband.  They  do  not  like  our  Christian 
organization  of  society,  and  I  wish  they  would  all  elope,  the 
wretches  of  one  sex  taking  the  wretches  of  the  other,  and 
start  to-morrow  morning  for  the  great  Sahara  Desert,  until 
the  simoon  shall  sweep  seven  feet  of  sand  all  over  them,  and 
not  one  passing  caravan  for  the  next  five  hundred  years 
bring  back  one  miserable  bone  of  their  carcasses.  Free 
Loveism  !  It  it  the  double  distilled  extract  of  mix  vomica, 
ratsbane  and  adder's  tongue.  Never  until  society  goes 
back  to  the  old  Bible  and  hears  its  eulogy  of  purity  and 
its  anathema  of  uncleanness — never  until  then  will  this  evil 
be  extirpated. 

EXPLOSIONS   OF  SOCIAL  LIFE. 

Then  look  at  the  impurities  of  these  great  cities.  Ever 
and  anon  there  are  reports  in  the  newspapers  that  make  the 
story  of  Sodom  quite  respectable  ;  for  such  things,  Christ  says, 
it  were  more  tolerable  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  than  for  the 
Chorazins  and  Bethsaidas  of  greater  light.  It  is  no  unusual 
thing  in  our  cities  to  see  men  in  high  position  with  two  or 


258  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

three  families,  or  refined  ladies  willing  solemnly  to  marry  the 
very  swine  of  society,  if  they  be  wealthy,  l^rooklyn,  whose 
streets  fifteen  years  ago  were  almost  free  from  all  sign  of  the 
social  evil,  now  night  by  night  rivals  upper  Broadwa)-  in  its 
flamboyant  wickedness.  The  Bible  is  all  a-flame  with  dLnunci- 
ations  against  an  impure  life,  but  man)' of  the  American  minis 
try  utter  not  one  point-blank  word  against  this  iniquity  lest 
some  old  libertine  tliroiv  up  his  cJnircJi  pczv.  Machinery  is 
organized  in  all  the  cities  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  by 
which  to  put  yearly  in  the  grinding-mill  of  this  iniquity  thou- 
sands of  the  unsuspecting  of  the  country  farmhouses,  one  pro- 
curess confessing  last  week  in  the  courts  that  she  had  sup- 
plied the  infernal  market  with  one  Jnindrcd  and  fifty  sojtls  in 
six  months.  Oh  !  for  five  hundred  Pall  Mall  Gazettes  in 
America  to  swing  open  the  door  of  this  lazar-house  of  social 
corruption  !     Exposure  must  come  before  extirpation. 


ALLEY   SCENE. 

Pass  on  through  the  alley.  Open  the  door.  Look  at  those 
two  eyes  rising  up  out  of  the  darkness  and  out  from  the 
straw  in  the  corner,  coming  toward  you,  and  as  the}'  come 
near  you  your  light  goes  out.  Strike  another  match.  Ah! 
this  is  a  babe,  not  like  those  beautiful  children  presented 
in  baptism.  This  little  one  never  smiled  ;  it  never  will  smile. 
A  flower  flung  on  an  awfully  barren  beach.  O  Heavenly 
Shepherd,  fold  that  little  one  in  Thy  arms!  Wrap  around 
you  your  shawl  or  your  Coat  tighter,  for  the  cold  wind  sweeps 
through. 

Strike  another  match.  Ah  !  is  it  possible  that  the  scarred 
and  bruised  face  of  that  young  woman  ever  was  looked  into 
by  maternal  tenderness  ?  Utter  no  scorn.  Utter  no  harsh 
word.  No  ray  of  hope  has  dawned  on  that  brow  for  many 
a  year.  No  ray  of  hope  ever  will  dawn  on  that  brow.  But 
the  light  has  gone  out.  Do  not  strike  another  light.  It 
would  be  a  mockery  to  kindle  another  light  in  such  a  place 
as  that.     Pass  out  and  pass  down  the  street.     Our  cities  of 


SOCIAL   IMPURITY.  259 

Brooklyn  and  New  York  and  all  our  great  cities  are  full  of 
such  homes,  and  the  worst  time  is  the  third  watch  of  the 
night.  But  while  the  city  van  carries  the  scum  of  this  sin 
from  the  prison  to  the  police  court  morning  by  morning,  it 
is  full  time,  if  we  do  not  want  high  American  life  to  become 
like  that  of  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  to  put  millionaire 
Lotharios  and  the  Pompadours  of  your  brown-stone  palaces 
into  a  van  of  popular  indignation,  and  drive  them  out  of 
respectable  associations.  What  prospect  of  social  purifica- 
tion can  there  be,  as  long  as  at  summer  watering-places  it 
is  usual  to  see  a  young  woman  of  excellent  rearing,  stand 
and  simper  and  giggle,  and  roll  up  her  eyes  sideways  before 
one  of  those  first-class  satyrs  of  fashionable  life,  and  on  the 
ball-room  floor  join  him  in  the  dance,  the  maternal  chaperone 
meanwhile  beaming  from  the  wall  on  the  scene  ?  Matches 
are  made  in  heaven,  they  say.  Not  such  matches  ;  for  the 
brimstone  indicates  the  opposite  region. 

The  evil  is  overshadowing  all  our  cities.  By  some  these 
immoralities  are  called  peccadilloes,  gallantries,  eccentrici- 
ties, and  are  relegated  to  the  realms  of  jocularity,  and  few 
efforts  are  being  made  against  it. 


GOD  BLESS  THE   '*  WHITE-CROSS  " 

movement,  as  it  is  called — the  excellent  and  talented  Miss 
Frances  Willard,  its  ablest  advocate  on  this  side  the  sea — an 
organization  making  a  mighty  assault  on  this  evil !  God  for- 
ward the  tracts  on  this  subject  distributed  by  the  religious  tract 
societies  of  the  land !  God  help  parents  in  the  great  work 
they  are  doing,  in  trying  to  start  their  children  with  pure 
principles!  God  help  all  legislators  in  their  attempt  to  in- 
hibit this  crime  ! 

But,  is  this  all?  Then  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when 
the  last  vestige  of  purity  and  home  will  vanish  out  of  sight. 
Human  arms,  human  pens,  human  voices,  human  talents 
are  not  sufflcient.  I  begin  to  look  up.  I  listen  for  artillery 
rumbling  down  the  sapphire  boulevards  of  heaven.     I  watch 


260  TRUMPET  FKALS. 

to  sec  if  ill  the  morning  light  there  be  not  the  flash  of  de- 
scending scimetars.  O  for  God  !  Does  it  not  seem  time  for 
His  appearance?  Is  it  not  time  for  all  lands  to  cry  out: 
"  Let  God  arise,  and  let  His  enemies  be  scattered !" 

[As  a  caution  to  young  men,  the  Editor  adds  almost  the  last  words 
of  John  B.  Gough :  "  Young  men,  keep  your  record  clean."] 


CHAPTER  XI. 
Intemperance. 

"And  Noah  planted  a  vineyard  and  drank  of  the  wine  and  was 
drunken." 

Noah  did  the  best  and  the  worst  thing  for  the  world. 
He  built  an  ark  against  the  deluge  of  water,  but  introduced 
a  deluge  against  which  the  human  race  has  ever  since  been 
trying  to  build  an  ark — the  deluge  of  drunkenness.  In  the 
opening  chapters  of  the  Bible  we  hear  his  staggering  steps. 
Shem  and  Japhet  tried  to  cover  up  the  disgrace,  but  there 
he  is,  drunk  on  wine  at  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  world 
when,  to  say  the  least,  there  was  no  lack  of  water. 

Inebriation  having  entered  the  world,  has  not  retreated. 
Abigail,  the  fair  and  heroic  wife  who  saved  the  flocks  of 
Nabal,  her  husband,  from  confiscation  by  invaders,  goes 
home  at  night  and  finds  him  so  intoxicated  she  cannot  tell 
him  the  story  of  his  narrow  escape.  Uriah  came  to  see  David, 
and  David  got  him  drunk,  and  paved  the  way  for  the  despo- 
liation of  a  household.  Even  the  church  bishops  needed  to 
be  charged  to  be  sober  and  not  given  to  too  much  wine; 
and  so  familiar  were  the  people  of  Bible  times  with  the  stag- 
gering and  falling  motion  of  the  inebriate,  that  Isaiah,  when 
he  comes  to  describe  the  final  dislocation  of  worlds,  says : 
"  The  earth  shall  reel  to  and  fro  like  a  drunkard." 

Ever  since  apples  and  grapes  and  wheat  grew,  the  world 
has  been  tempted  to  unhealthful  stimulants.  But  the  intoxi- 
cants of  the  olden  time  were  an  innocent  beverage,  a  harm- 
less orangeade,  a  quiet  syrup,  a  peaceful  soda-water,  as 
compared  with  the  liquids  of  modern  inebriation,  into  which 
a  madness,  and  a  fury,  and  a  gloom,  and  a  fire,  and  a  suicide, 
and  a  retribution  have  mixed  and  mingled.     Fermentation 

261 


262  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

was  always  known,  but  it  was  not  until  a  thousand  years 
after  Christ  that  distillation  was  invented. 


THE  ARCH   HENT)  OF  THE   NATIONS. 

While  we  must  confess  that  some  of  the  ancient  arts  have 
been  lost,  the  Christian  era  is  superior  to  all  others  in  the 
bad  eminence  of  whiskey  and  rum  and  gin.  The  modern 
drunk  is  a  hundred-fold  worse  than  the  ancient  drunk.  Noah 
in  his  intoxication  became  imbecile,  but  the  victims  of  mod- 
ern alcoholism  have  to  struggle  with  whole  menageries  of 
wild  beasts  and  jungles  of  hissing  serpents  and  perditions  of 
blaspheming  demons.  An  arch  fiend  arrived  in  our  world, 
and  he  built  an  invisible  cauldron  of  temptation.  He  built 
that  cauldron  strong  and  stout  for  all  ages  and  all  nations. 
First,  he  squeezed  into  the  cauldron  the  juices  of  the  forbid- 
den fruit  of  Paradise.  Then  he  gathered  for  it  a  distillation 
from  the  harvest  fields  and  the  orchards  of  the  hemisj)heres. 
Then  he  poured  into  this  cauldron  capsicum,  and  copperas, 
and  logwood,  and  deadly  nightshade,  and  assault  and  battery, 
and  vitriol,  and  opium,  and  rum,  and  murder,  and  sulphuric 
acid,  and  theft,  and  potash,  and  cochineal,  and  red  carrots, 
and  poverty,  and  death,  and  hops. 

But  it  was  a  dry  compound,  and  it  must  be  moistened, 
and  it  must  be  liquefied,  and  so  the  arch  fiend  poured  into 
that  cauldron  the  tears  of  centuries  of  orphanage  and  widow- 
hood, and  he  poured  in  the  blood  of  twenty  thousand  assas- 
sinations. And  then  the  arch  fiend  took  a  shovel  that  he 
had  brought  up  from  the  furnaces  beneath,  and  he  put  that 
shovel  into  this  great  cauldron  and  began  to  stir,  and  the 
cauldron  began  to  heave,  and  rock,  and  boil,  and  sputter, 
and  hiss,  and  smoke,  and  the  nations  gathered  around  it 
with  cups,  and  tankards,  and  demijohns,  and  kegs,  and  there 
was  enough  for  all,  and  the  arch  fiend  cried  ;  "  Aha  !  cham- 
pion fiend  am  I.  Who  has  done  more  than  I  have  for  cofiins, 
and  graveyards,  and  prisons,  and  insane  asj-lums,  and  the 
populating  of  the  lost  world?  And  when  this  cauldron  is 
emptied    I'll   fill   it  again,  and    I'll  stir  it  again,  and  it  will 


INTEMPERANCE.  263 

smoke  again,  and  that  smoke  will  join  another  smoke — the 
smoke  of  a  torment  that  ascendeth  forever  and  ever." 

"  I  drove  fifty  ships  on  the  rocks  of  Newfoundland  and 
the  Skerries  and  the  Goodwins.  I  defeated  the  Northern 
army  at  Fredericksburg.  I  have  ruined  more  senators  than 
will  gather  next  winter  in  the  national  councils.  I  have 
ruined  more  lords  than  will  be  gathered  in  the  House  of 
Peers.  The  cup  out  of  which  I  ordinarily  drink  is  a  bleached 
human  skull,  and  the  upholstery  of  my  palace  is  so  rich  a 
crimson  because  it  is  dyed  in  human  gore,  and  the  mosaic  of 
my  floors  is  made  up  of  the  bones  of  children  dashed  to 
death  by  drunken  parents,  and  my  favorite  music,  sweeter 
than  Te  Deum  or  triumphal  march — my  favorite  music  is 
the  cry  of  daughters  turned  out  at  midnight  on  the  street 
because  father  has  come  home  from  the  carousal,  and  the 
seven-hundred-voiced  shriek  of  the  sinking  steamer,  because 
the  captain  was  not  himself  when  he  put  the  ship  on  the 
wrong  course.  Champion  fiend  am  I !  I  have  kindled  more 
fires,  I  have  wrung  out  more  agonies,  I  have  stretched  out 
more  midnight  shadows,  I  have  opened  more  Golgothas,  I 
have  rolled  more  juggernauts,  I  have  damned  more  souls 
than  any  other  emissary  of  diabolism.    Champion  fiend  am  I !" 


THE   CAROUSAL. 

"  In  that  night  was  Belshazzar  the  King  of  the  Chaldeans  slain." 
—Daniel  5 :  30. 

Bible  pictures,  like  the  works  of  the  old  masters,  improve 
by  age.  Like  Raphael's  Transfiguration  or  Da  Vinci's  Last 
Supper,  they  are  worth  more  now  than  ever  before. 

Night  was  about  to  come  down  upon  Babylon.  The 
shadows  of  her  two  hundred  and  fifty  towers  began  to 
lengthen.  The  Euphrates  rolled  on,  touched  by  the  fiery 
splendors  of  the  setting  sun  and  gates  of  brass,  burnished 
and  glittering,  opened  and  shut  like  doors  of  flame.  The 
hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  wet  with  the  heavy  dew,  began 
to  pour  from  starlit  flowers  and  dripping  leaf,  a  fragrance 


264  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

for  many  miles  around.  The  streets  and  squares  were  lighted 
for  dance  and  frolic  and  promenade.  The  theatres  and  gal- 
leries of  art  invited  the  wealth  and  pomp  and  grandeur  of 
the  city  to  rare  entertainments.  Scenes  of  riot  and  wassail 
were  mingled  in  every  street,  and  godless  mirth  and  outrage- 
ous excess  and  splendid  wickedness  came  to  the  king's 
palace  to  do  their  mightiest  deeds  of  darkness. 

A  royal  feast  to-night  at  the  king's  palace.  Rushing  up 
to  the  gates  are  chariots  upholstered  with  precious  cloth 
from  Dedan  and  drawn  by  fire-eyed  horses  from  Togarmah, 
that  rear  and  neigh  in  the  grass  by  the  charioteers,  while  a 
thousand  lords  and  women  dismount  dressed  in  all  the  splen- 
dor of  Syrian  emerald  and  the  color  blending  of  agate  and 
chasteness  of  coral,  and  the  sombre  glory  of  Tyrian  purple, 
and  princely  embroideries  brought  from  afar  by  camels 
across  the  desert  and  by  ships  of  Tarshish  across  the  sea. 
Open  wide  the  gates  and  let  the  guests  come  in.  The  cham- 
berlains and  cup-bearers  are  all  ready.  Hark  to  the  rustle 
of  the  silks  and  to  the  carol  of  the  music.  See  the  blaze  of 
the  jewels.  Lift  the  banners.  Fill  the  cups.  Clap  the 
cymbals.  Blow  the  trumpets.  Let  the  night  go  by  with 
song  and  dance  and  ovation,  and  let  that  Babylonish  tongue 
be  palsied  that  will  not  say,  "  O  King  Belshazzar,  live  for- 
ever." 

Ah,  my  friends,  it  was  not  any  common  banquet  to  which 
these  great  people  came.  All  parts  of  the  earth  had  sent 
their  richest  viands  to  that  table.  Brackets  and  chandeliers 
flashed  their  light  upon  tankards  of  burnished  gold.  Fruits, 
ripe  and  luscious,  in  baskets  of  silver  entwined  with  leaves, 
plucked  from  the  royal  conservatory.  Vases,  inlaid  with 
emerald  and  ridged  with  exquisite  traceries,  filled  with  nuts 
that  were  thrashed  from  forests  of  different  lands.  Wine 
brought  from  the  royal  vats  foaming  in  the  decanters  and 
bubbling  in  the  chalices.  Tufts  of  cassia  and  frankincense 
wafting  their  sweetness  from  wall  and  table.  Gorgeous  ban- 
ners unfolding  in  the  breeze  that  came  through  the  opcnmg 
window  bewitched  with  the  perfume  of  hanging  gardens. 

Fountains  rising  up  from  inclosures  of  ivor}-  in  jets  of 


IN  TEMPERA  NCE.  265 

crystal  to  fall  in  flattering  rain  of  diamonds  and  pearls. 
Statues  of  mighty  men  looking  down  from  niches  in  the  wall 
upon  crowns  and  shields  brought  from  subdued  empires. 
Idols  of  wonderful  work  standing  on  pedestals  of  precious 
stones.  Embroidery  stooping  about  the  windows  and 
wrapping  pillars  of  cedar  and  drifting  on  floor  inlaid  with 
ivory  and  agate.  Music  mingling  the  thrum  of  harps  and 
clash  of  cymbals  and  the  blast  of  trumpets  in  one  wave  of 
transport  that  went  rippling  along  the  wall  and  breathing 
among  the  garlands  and  pouring  down  the  corridors  and 
thrilling  the  souls  of  a  thousand  banqueters. 

The  signal  is  given,  and  the  lords  and  ladies,  the  mighty 
men  and  women  of  the  land,  come  around  the  table.  Pour 
out  the  wine.  Let  foam  and  bubble  kiss  the  rim.  Hoist 
every  one  his  cup  and  drink  to  the  sentiment :  "  O  King 
Belshazzar,  live  forever  !"  Be-starred  head-band  and  coro- 
net of  royal  beauty  gleam  to  the  uplifted  chalices  as  again 
and  again  and  again  they  are  emptied.  Away  with  care 
from  the  palace  !  Tear  royal  dignity  to  tatters!  Pour  out 
more  wine !  Give  us  more  light,  wilder  music,  sweeter  per- 
fume !  Lord  shouts  to  lord,  captain  ogles  to  captain.  Gob- 
lets clash  ;  decanters  rattle.  There  come  in  the  obscene  song 
and  the  drunken  hiccough  and  the  slavering  lip  and  the  guf- 
faw of  idiotic  laughter,  bursting  from  the  lips  of  princes, 
flushed,  reeling,  bloodshot,  and  while  mingling  with  it  all  I 
hear,  "  huzza,  huzza,  for  great  Belshazzar !" 

What  is  that  on  the  plastering  of  the  wall  ?  Is  it  a 
spirit?  Is  it  a  phantom?  Is  it  God?  The  music  stops. 
The  goblets  fall  from  the  nerveless  grasp.  There  is  a  thrill. 
There  is  a  start.  There  is  a  thousand-voiced  shriek  of 
horror.  Let  Daniel  be  brought  in  to  read  that  writing.  He 
comes  in.  He  reads  it.  "  Weighed  in  the  balances  and 
found  wanting." 

Meanwhile  the  Assyrians  who  for  two  years  had  been 
laying  a  seige  to  that  city  took  advantage  of  that  carousal 
and  came  in.  I  hear  the  feet  of  the  conquerors  on  the 
palace  stairs.  Massacre  rushes  in  with  a  thousand  gleaming 
knives.     Death  bursts  upon  the  scene;  and  I  shut  the  door 


266  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

of  that  banqueting-hall,  for  I  do  not  want  to  look.  There  is 
nothing  there  but  torn  banners  and  broken  wreaths  and  the 
shish  of  upset  tankards  and  the  blood  of  murdered  women 
and  the  kicked  and  tumbled  carcase  of  a  dead  king.  "  For 
in    that   night  was  Bclshazzar  the   King  of  the   Chaldeans 

slain." 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  opening  of  the 
banquet  and  of  sin  at  its  close.  Young  man,  if  you  had 
looked  in  upon  the  banquet  in  the  first  few  hours  you  would 
have  wished  you  had  been  invited  there  and  could  sit  at  the 
feast.  "  Oh,  the  grandeur  of  Belshazzar's  feast  I"  you  would 
have  said.  But  you  look  in  at  the  close  of  the  banquet,  and 
your  blood  curdles  with  horror.  The  king  of  terrors  has 
there  a  ghastlier  banquet.  Human  blood  is  the  wine,  and 
dying  groans  are  the  music. 

Sin  has  made  itself  a  king  in  the  earth.  It  has  crowned 
itself.  It  has  spread  a  banquet.  It  invites  all  the  world  to 
come  to  it.  It  has  hung  in  its  banqueting-hall  the  spoils  of 
all  kingdoms  and  the  banners  of  all  nations.  It  has  gathered 
from  all  music.  It  has  strewn  from  its  wealth  the  tables 
and  the  floors  and  the  arches.  And  yet  how  often  is  that 
banquet  broken  up,  and  how  terrible  is  its  end  ;  ever  and 
anon  there  is  a  handwriting  on  the  wall.  A  king  falls.  A 
great  culprit  is  arrested.  The  knees  of  wickedness  knock 
together.  God's  judgment  like  an  armed  host  breaks  in 
upon  the  banquet  ;  and  that  night  is  Belshazzar  the  King  of 
the  Chaldeans  slain. 


A   WARNING   VOICE   FROM   THE   ASHES   OF   BABYLON. 

Drunkenness  is  the  greatest  evil  of  this  nation,  and  it 
takes  no  logical  process  to  prove  that  a  drunken  nation  can- 
not long  be  a  free  nation.  So  I  go  on  showing  you  the  per- 
ils that  threaten  the  destruction  of  American  institutions.  I 
call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  drunkenness  is  not  sub- 
siding, certainly  that  it  is  not  at  a  standstill,  but  that  it  is  on 
an  onward  march,  and  it  is  a  double  quick.  Beginning  near 
by,  I  have  seen  more  drunken  people  in  Brooklyn  and   in 


INTEMPERANCE.  267 

New  York  in  the  last  six  weeks  than  in  any  two  years  of  my 
life,  and  so  have  you,  if  you  have  been  passing  up  and  down 
these  streets  much.  There  is  more  rum  swallowed  in  this 
country,  and  of  a  worse  kind,  than  was  ever  swallowed  since 
the  first  distillery  began  its  work  of  death.  Where  there 
was  one  drunken  home  there  are  ten  drunken  homes.  Where 
there  was  one  drunkard's  grave  there  are  twenty  drunkards' 
graves. 

According  to  United  States  Government  figures,  in  1840 
there  were  23,000,000  gallons  of  beer  sold.  Last  year  there 
were  551,000,000  gallons.  According  to  the  governmental 
figures,  in  the  year  1840  there  were  5,000,000  gallons  of  wine 
sold.  Last  year  there  were  25,000,000  gallons  of  wine.  It 
is  on  the  increase.  Talk  about  crooked  whiskey — by  which 
men  mean  the  whiskey  that  does  not  pay  the  tax  to  govern- 
ment— I  tell  you  all  strong  drink  is  crooked.  Crooked  otard, 
crooked  cognac,  crooked  schnapps,  crooked  beer,  crooked 
wine,  crooked  whiskey,  because  it  makes  a  man's  path  crooked, 
and  his  life  crooked,  and  his  death  crooked,  and  his  eternity 
crooked. 

If  I  could  gather  all  the  armies  of  the  dead  drunkards 
and  have  them  come  to  resurrection,  and  then  add  to  that 
host  all  the  armies  of  living  drunkards,  five  and  ten  abreast, 
and  then  if  I  could  have  you  mount  a  horse  and  ride  along 
that  line  for  review,  you  would  ride  that  horse  until  he 
dropped  from  exhaustion,  and  you  would  mount  another 
horse  and  ride  until  he  fell  from  exhaustion,  and  you  would 
take  another  and  another,  and  you  would  ride  along  hour 
after  hour,  and  day  after  day.  Great  hosts,  in  regiments,  in 
brigades.  Great  armies  of  them.  And  then  if  you  had  voice 
enough  stentorian  to  make  them  all  hear,  and  you  could 
give  the  command,  "  Forward,  march !"  their  first  tramp 
would  make  the  earth  tremble.  I  do  not  care  which  way 
you  look  in  the  community  to-day,  the  evil  is  increasing. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  thousands 
of  people  born  with  a  thirst  for  strong  drink — a  fact  too 
often  ignored.     Along  some  ancestral  lines  there  runs  the 


268  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

river  of  temptation.     There  are  children  whose  swaddh'ng 
clothes  are  torn  off  the  shroud  of  death. 


THE   drunkard's   WILL. 

Many  a  father  has  made  a  will  of  this  sort :  "  In  the  name 
of  God,  amen.  I  bequeath  to  my  children  my  houses  and 
lands  and  estates,  share  and  share  shall  they  alike.  Hereto 
T  affix  my  hand  and  seal  in  the  presence  of  witnesses."  And 
yet,  perhaps  that  very  man  has  made  another  will  that  the 
people  have  never  read,  and  that  has  not  been  proved  in  the 
courts.  That  will  put  in  writing  would  read  something  like 
this:  "  In  the  name  of  disease  and  appetite  and  death,  amen. 
I  bequeath  to  m}'  children  my  evil  habits,  m)' tankards  shall 
be  theirs,  my  wine-cup  shall  be  theirs,  my  destroyed  reputa- 
tion shall  be  theirs.  Share  and  share  alike  shall  they  in  the 
infamy.  Hereto  I  afifix  my  hand  and  seal  in  the  presence  of 
all  the  applauding  harpies  of  hell." 

DRUG   STORES. 

From  the  multitude  of  those  who  have  the  evil  habit 
born  with  them,  this  army  is  being  augmented.  And  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  a  great  many  of  the  drug  stores  are  abet- 
ting this  evil,  and  alcohol  is  sold  under  the  name  of  bitters. 
It  is  bitters  for  this,  and  bitters  for  that,  and  bitters  for  some 
other  thing ;  and  good  men  deceived,  not  knowing  there  is 
any  thraldom  of  alcoholism  coming  from  that  source,  are  go- 
ing down,  and  some  day  a  man  sits  with  the  bottle  of  black 
bitters  on  his  table,  and  the  cork  flies  out,  and  after  it  flies  a 
fiend  and  clutches  the  man  b}'  his  throat,  and  says:  "Aha! 
I  have  been  after  you  for  ten  years.  I  have  got  you  now. 
Down  with  you,  down  with  you  !"  Bitters !  Ah  !  yes.  They 
make  a  man's  famil)-  bitter,  and  his  home  bitter,  and  his  dis- 
jiosition  bitter,  and  his  death  bitter,  and  his  hell  bitter.  Bit- 
ters !  A  vast  army  all  the  time  increasing.  And  let  me  al- 
so say  that  it  is  as  thoroughly  organized  as  any  army,  with 
commander-in-chief,  staff  officers,  infantry,  cavalry,  batteries, 


INTEMPERANCE.  269 

sutlersliips  and  flaming  ensigns,  and  that  every  candidate  for 
office  in  America  will  yet  have  to  pronounce  himself  the 
friend  or  foe  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

1  have  in  my  possession  a  circular  of  a  brewers'  association 
— a  circular  sent  to  all  candidates  for  office  ;  it  has  been  sent 
or  will  be  sent — a  form  to  be  filled  up  saying  whether  the  can- 
didate is  a  friend  of  the  liquor  traffic  or  its  enemy;  and  if  he 
is  an  enemy  of  the  business  then  the  man  is  doomed  ;  or  if 
he  declines  to  fill  up  the  circular  and  send  it  back,  his  silence 
is  taken  as  a  negative  answer. 

TAKE    SIDES. 

It  seems  to  me  it  is  about  time  for  the  17,000,000  profes- 
sors of  religion  in  America  to  take  sides.  It  is  going  to  be 
an  out-and-out  battle  between  drunkenness  and  sobriety,  be- 
tween heaven  and  hell,  between  God  and  the  devil.  Take 
sides  before  there  is  any  further  national  decadence ;  take 
sides  before  your  sons  are  sacrificed  and  the  new  home  of 
your  daughter  goes  down  under  the  alcoholism  of  an  embruted 
husband.  Take  sides  while  your  voice,  your  pen,  your  pray- 
er, your  vote  may  have  any  influence  in  arresting  the  despo- 
liation of  this  nation.  If  the  17,000,000  professors  of  relig- 
ion should  take  sides  on  this  subject,  it  would  not  be  very 
long  before  the  destiny  of  this  nation  would  be  decided  in 
the  right  direction.  Certainly,  sermons  setting  forth  the 
perils  that  threaten  the  destruction  of  q,ur  American  institu- 
tions would  be  a  very  poorly  planned  course  of  sermons  if 
they  did  not  speak  of  drunkenness. 

Is  it  a  State  evil?  or  is  it  a  national  evil?   Does  it  belong 

o 

to  the  North  ?  or  does  it  belong  to  the  South  ?  Does  it  be- 
long to  the  East  ?  or  does  it  belong  to  the  West  ?  Ah  ! 
there  is  not  an  American  river  into  which  its  tears  have  not 
fallen  and  into  which  its  suicides  have  not  plunged.  What 
ruined  that  Southern  plantation  ?  Every  field  a  fortune,  the 
proprietor  and  his  family  once  the  most  affluent  supporters 
of  summer  watering-places.  What  threw  that  New  England 
farm  into  decay  and  turned  the  roseate  cheeks  that  bloomed 


2/0  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

at  the  foot  of  the  Green  Mountains  into  the  pallor  of  de- 
spair ?  What  has  smitten  every  street  of  every  village,  town, 
and  city  of  this  continent  with  a  moral  pestilence  ?  What 
sends  thousands  of  men  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  November 
to  the  ballot-box,  maudlin,  incompetent,  filthy,  and  blas- 
phemous? Strong  drink.  To  prove  that  this  is  a  national 
evil,  I  call  up  three  States  in  opposite  directions — Maine, 
Iowa,  and  Georgia.  Let  them  testify  in  regard  to  this. 
State  of  Maine  says :  "  It  is  so  great  an  evil  up  here  we  have 
anathematized  it  as  a  State."  State  of  Iowa  says  :  "  It  is  so 
great  an  evil  out  here  we  have  prohibited  it  by  constitutional 
amendment."  State  of  Georgia  says :  "  It  is  so  great  an 
evil  down  here  that  ninety  counties  of  this  State  have  made 
the  sale  of  intoxicating  drink  a  criminality."  So  the  word 
comes  up  from  all  sources,  and  it  is  going  to  be  a  Waterloo, 
and  I  want  you  to  know  on  what  side  I  am  going  to  be  when 
that  Waterloo  is  fully  come,  and  I  want  you  to  be  on  the 
right  side.  Either  drunkenness  will  be  destroyed  in  this 
country,  or  the  American  Government  will  be  destroyed. 
Drunkenness  and  free  institutions  are  coming  into  a  death 
grapple. 

O  how  many  are  waiting  to  see  if  something  cannot  be 
done  !  Thousands  of  drunkards  waiting  who  cannot  go  ten 
minutes  in  any  direction  without  having  the  temptation 
glaring  before  their  eyes  or  appealing  to  their  nostrils,  they 
fighting  against  it  with  enfeebled  will  and  diseased  appetite, 
conquering,  then  surrendering,  conquering  again  and  sur- 
rendering again,  and  crying:  "  How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long 
before  these  infamous  solicitations  shall  be  gone  ?"  And  how 
many  mothers  there  are  waiting  to  see  if  this  national  curse  can- 
not lift !  Is  that  the  boy  that  had  the  honest  breath  who  comes 
home  with  breath  vitiated  or  disguised?  What  a  change! 
How  quickly  those  habits  of  early  coming  home  have  been 
exchanged  for  the  rattling  of  the  night-key  in  the  door  long 
after  the  last  watchman  has  gone  by  and  tried  to  see  that 
everything  was  closed  up  for  the  night !  Oh,  what  a  change 
for  that  young  man  who  we  had  hoped  would  do  something 
in    merchandise,  or  in   artisanship,  or   in   a   profession  that 


IN  TEMPERA  NCE.  2  7 1 

would  do  honor  to  the  family  name  long  after  mother's 
wrinkled  hands  are  folded  from  the  last  toil  !  All  that  ex- 
changed for  startled  look  when  the  door-bell  rings,  lest 
something  has  happened.  And  the  wish  that  the  scarlet- 
fever  twenty  years  ago  had  been  fatal,  for  then  he  would 
have  gone  directly  to  the  bosom  of  his  Saviour.  But  alas, 
poor  old  soul,  she  has  lived  to  experience  what  Solomon 
said  :  "A  foolish  son  is  a  heaviness  to  his  mother." 

0  what  a  funeral  it  will  be  when  that  boy  is  brought 
home  dead  !  And  how  mother  will  sit  there  and  say  :  "  Is 
this  my  boy  that  I  used  to  fondle  and  that  I  walked  the 
floor  with  in  the  night  when  he  was  sick?  Is  this  the  boy 
that  I  held  to  the  baptismal  font  for  baptism  ?  Is  this  the 
boy  for  whom  I  toiled  until  the  blood  burst  from  the  tips  of 
my  fingers  that  he  might  have  a  good  start  and  a  good 
home  ?  Lord,  why  hast  Thou  let  me  hve  to  see  this  ?  Can 
it  be  that  these  swollen  hands  are  the  ones  that  used  to  wan- 
der over  my  face  when  rocking  him  to  sleep  ?  Can  it  be  that 
this  is  the  swollen  brow  that  I  once  so  rapturously  kissed  ? 
Poor  boy  !  how  tired  he  does  look.  I  wonder  who  struck 
him  that  blow  across  the  temples  !  I  wonder  if  he  uttered 
a  dying  prayer  !  Wake  up,  my  son  !  Don't  you  hear  me  ? 
Wake  up  !  O  he  can't  hear  me  !  Dead,  dead,  dead  !  '  O 
Absalom,  my  son,  my  son,  would  God  that  I  had  died  for 
thee  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  !' " 

1  am  not  much  of  a  mathematician,  and  I  cannot  esti- 
mate it ;  but  is  there  any  one  here  quick  enough  at  figures 
to  estimate  how  many  mothers  there  are  waiting  for  some- 
thing to  be  done  ?  Ay,  there  are  many  wives  waiting  for 
domestic  rescue.  He  promised  something  different  from 
that  when,  after  the  long  acquaintance  and  the  careful  scru- 
tiny of  character,  the  hand  and  the  heart  were  offered  and 
accepted.  What  a  hell  on  earth  a  woman  lives  in  who  has  a 
drunken  husband !  O  Death,  how  lovely  thou  art  to  her, 
and  how  soft  and  warm  thy  skeleton  hand !  The  sepulchre 
at  midnight  in  winter  is  a  king's  drawing-room  compared 
with  that  woman's  home.  It  is  not  so  much  the  blow  on  the 
head  that  hurts  as  the  blow  on   the   heart.     The  rum  fiend 


272  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

came  to  the  door  of  that  beautiful  home  and  opened  the 
door  and  stood  there,  and  said  :  "  I  curse  this  dwelHng  with 
an  unrelenting  curse.  I  curse  that  father  into  a  maniac,  I 
curse  that  mother  into  a  pauper.  I  curse  those  sons  into 
vagabonds.  I  curse  those  daughters  into  profligacy.  Cursed 
be  brcad-tray  and  cradle.  Cursed  be  couch  and  chair  and 
family  Bible  with  record  of  marriages  and  births  and  deaths. 
Curse  upon  curse."  O  how  many  wives  are  there  waiting 
to  see  if  something  cannot  be  done  to  shake  these  frosts  of 
the  second  death  off  the  orange-blossoms !  Yea,  God  is 
waiting,  the  God  who  works  through  human  instrumentali- 
ties, waiting  to  see  whether  this  nation  is  going  to  overthrow 
this  evil ;  and  if  it  refuse  to  do  so  God  will  wipe  out  the 
nation  as  He  did  Phcenicia,  as  He  did  Rome,  as  He  did 
Thebes,  as  He  did  Babylon.  Ay,  He  is  waiting  to  see  what 
the  Church  of  God  will  do.  If  the  Church  does  not  do  its  work, 
then  He  will  wipe  it  out  as  He  did  the  Church  of  Ephesus, 
Church  of  Thyatira,  Church  of  Sardis.  The  Protestant  and 
Roman  Catholic  Churches  to-day  stand  side  by  side  with  an 
impotent  look,  gazing  on  this  evil,  which  costs  this  country 
more  than  a  billion  dollars  a  year,  to  take  care  of  the  800,000 
paupers,  and  the  315,000  criminals,  and  the  30,000  idiots,  and 
to  bury  the  75,000  drunkards. 

TO  THE   rescue! 

There  is  the  Bengal  tiger  of  drunkenness  that  prowls 
around,  and  instead  of  attacking  it,  how  many  of  us  hide 
under  the  church  pew  or  the  communion  table  ?  There  is 
so  much  invested  in  it,  we  are  afraid  to  assault  it  ;  millions 
of  dollars  in  barrels,  in  vats,  in  spigots,  in  corkscrews,  in  gin 
palaces  with  marble  floors  and  Italian  top-tables,  and  chased 
ice-coolers,  and  in  the  strychnine,  and  the  logwood,  and  the 
tartaric  acid,  and  the  nux  vomica,  that  go  to  make  up  our 
"pure"  American  drinks. 

I  looked  with  wondering  e}'es  on  tJic  "'  Hiidclbcrg  tun." 
It  is  the  great  liquor  vat  of  Germany,  which  is  said  to  hold 
eight  hundred  bogheads  of  wine,  and  only  three  times  in  a 
hundred  years  has  it  been  filled.     But,  as  I  stood  and  looked 


INTEMPERANCE.  2/3 

at  it,  I  said  to  myself :  "  That  is  nothing — eight  hundred 
hogsheads.  Why  our  American  vat  holds  four  million  five 
hundred  thousand  barrels  of  strong  drinks,  and  we  keep 
three  hundred  thousand  men  with  nothing  to  do  but  to  see 
that  it  is  filled."  O,  to  attack  this  great  monster  of  intem- 
perance requires  you  to  rally  all  your  Christian  courage. 
Through  the  press,  through  the  pulpit,  through  the  plat- 
form, you  must  assault  it.  Would  to  God  that  all  our  Ameri- 
can Christians  would  band  together,  not  for  crack-brained 
fanaticism,  but  for  holy  Christian  reform. 

A   GRAND   CRUSADE. 

To-day — not  in  the  millennium,  but  to-day — the  Church 
holds  the  balance  of  power  in  America;  and  if  Christian 
people — the  men  and  the  women  who  profess  to  love  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  to  love  purity  and  to  be  the  sworn 
enemies  of  all  uncleanness  and  debauchery  and  sin — if  all 
such  would  march  side  by  side  and  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
this  evil  would  soon  be  overthrown.  Think  of  300,000 
churches  and  Sunday-schools  in  Christendom  marching 
shoulder  to  shoulder  !  How  very  short  a  time  it  would  take 
them  to  put  down  this  evil,  if  all  the  churches  of  God — 
trans- Atlantic  and  cis-Atlantic — were  armed  on  this  subject ! 

Protagoras  boasted  that  out  of  the  sixty  years  of  his  life 
forty  years  he  had  spent  in  ruining  youth  ;  but  the  arch 
fiend  of  the  nations  may  make  the  more  infamous  boast  that 
all  its  life  it  has  been  ruining  the  bodies,  minds,  and  souls  of 
the  human  race. 

I  indict  this  evil  as  the  regicide,  the  fratricide,  the  patri- 
cide, the  matricide,  the  uxoricide  of  the  century.  Yet  under 
what  innocent  and  delusive  and  mirthful  names  alcoholism  de- 
ceives the  people  !  It  is  a  "  cordial."  It  is  "bitters."  It  is  an 
"eye-opener."  It  is  an  "  appetizer."  It  is  a  "  digester."  It  is 
an  "  invigorator."  It  is  a  "  settler."  It  is  a  "  night-cap."  Why 
don't  they  put  on  the  right  labels — "  Essence  of  Perdition," 
"  Conscience  Stupeficr,"  "  Five  Drachms  of  Heart-ache," 
"  Tears  of  Orphanage,"    "  Blood  of  Souls,"  "  Scabs   of    an 


2/4  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

Eternal  Leprosy,"  "  Venom  of  the  Worm  That  Never 
Dies"?  Only  once  in  a  while  is  there  anything  in  the  title 
of  liquors  to  even  hint  their  atrocity,  as  in  the  case  of  sour 
masJi.  That  I  see  advertised  all  over.  It  is  an  honest 
name,  and  any  one  can  understand  it.  Sour  mash !  That 
is,  it  makes  a  man's  disposition  sour,  and  his  associations 
sour,  and  his  prospects  sour,  and  then  it  is  good  to  mash  his 
body,  and  mash  his  soul,  and  mash  his  business,  and  mash 
his  family.  Sour  mash  !  One  honest  name  at  last  for  an 
intoxicant !  But  through  lying  labels  of  many  of  the 
apothecaries'  shops,  good  people,  who  are  only  a  little  under- 
tone in  health,  and  wanting  of  some  invigoration,  .ha\'e  un- 
wittingly got  on  their  tongue  the  fangs  of  this  cobra,  that 
stings  to  death  so  large  a  ratio  of  the  human  race. 


THE  EVIL  OF  DRUNKENNESS. 

Whether  you  live  in  Brooklyn  or  New  York,  or  Chicago  or 
Cincinnati,  or  Savannah  or  Boston,  or  in  any  of  the  cities  of 
this  land,  count  up  the  saloons  on  that  street,  and  see  they  are 
far  out  of  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  population.  You 
people  who  are  so  precise  and  particular  lest  there  should  be 
some  imprudence  or  rashness  in  attacking  the  rum  traffic, 
will  have  your  son  some  night  pitched  into  your  front  door 
dead  drunk,  or  your  daughter  will  come  home  with  her  chil- 
dren because  her  husband  has,  by  strong  drink,  been  turned 
into  a  demoniac.  The  rum  fiend  has  despoiled  whole  streets  of 
good  homes  in  all  our  cities.  Fathers,  brothers,  sons  on  the 
funeral  pyre  of  strong  drink  !  Fasten  tighter  the  victims  ! 
Stir  up  the  flames  !  Pile  on  the  corpses  !  More  men,  women, 
and  children  for  the  sacrifice  !  Let  us  have  whole  genera- 
tions on  fire  of  evil  habit  ;  and  at  the  sound  of  the  cornet, 
flute,  harp,  sackbut,  psaltery,  and  dulcimer  let  all  the  people 
fall  down  and  worship  King  Alcohol,  or  you  shall  be  cast 
into  the  fiery  furnace  of  the  rum  power. 


INTEMPERANCE.  2/5 


THE   DRAM-SHOP. 


is  a  great  caldron  of  iniquity  in  our  time.  Anacharsis  said 
that  the  vine  bore  three  grapes:  the  first  was  Pleasure,  the 
next  was  Drunkenness,  and  the  next  Misery.  Every  saloon 
above  ground  or  under  ground  is  a  fountain  of  iniquity.  It 
may  have  a  license  and  it  may  go  along  quite  respectably  for 
a  while,  but  after  a  while  the  cover  will  fall  off  and  the  color 
of  the  iniquity  will  be  displayed. 

**  Oh,"  says  some  one,  "  you  ought  to  be  easier  on  such 
a  traf^c  as  that  when  it  pays  such  a  large  revenue  to  the 
government,  and  helps  support  your  schools  and  your  great 
institutions  of  mercy."  And  then  I  think  of  what  William 
E.  Gladstone  said — I  think  it  was  the  first  time  he  was  Chan, 
cellor  of  the  Exchequer — when  men  engaged  in  the  ruinous 
traffic  came  to  him  and  said  their  business  ought  to  hav? 
more  consideration  from  the  fact  that  it  paid  such  a  larg« 
revenue  to  the  English  Government.  Mr.  Gladstone  said  : 
"  Gentlemen,  </(?«7  zvorry  yourselves  about  the  rcvcmie ;  give 
me  thirty  millions  of  sober  people,  and  we'll  have  revenue 
enough  and  a  surplus." 

We  might  in  this  country — this  traffic  perished — have 
less  revenue,  but  we  would  have  more  happy  homes,  and  we 
would  have  more  peace,  and  we  would  have  fewer  people  in 
the  penitentiary,  and  there  would  be  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  who  are  now  on  the  road  to  hell  who  would  start  on  the 
road  for  heaven. 

But  the  financial  ruin  is  a  very  small  part  of  it.  This 
iniquity  of  which  I  speak  takes  everything  that  is  sacred  out 
of  the  family,  everything  that  is  holy  in  religion,  everything 
that  is  infinite  in  the  soul,  and  tramples  it  under  foot.  The 
marriage-day  has  come.  The  twain  are  at  the  altar.  Lights 
flash.  Music  sounds.  Gay  feet  go  up  and  down  the  draw- 
ing-room. Did  ever  a  vessel  launch  on  such  a  bright  and 
beautiful  sea?  The  scene  changes.  Dingy  garret.  No  fire. 
On  a  broken  chair  a  sorrowful  wife.  Last  hope  gone.  Poor, 
forsaken,  trodden  under  foot,  she  knows  all  the  sorrows  of 
being  a  drunkard's  wife.     "  Oh,"  she  says,  "  he  was  the  kind- 


2/6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

est  man  that  ever  lived,  he  was  so  noble,  he  was  so  good  ! 
God  never  made  a  grander  man  than  he  was,  but  the  drink 
did  it,  the  drink  did  it !"  Some  day  she  will  press  her  hands 
against  her  temples  and  cry:  "  Oh,  my  brain,  my  brain  I"  or 
she  will  go  out  on  the  abutment  of  the  bridge  some  moon- 
lifrht  night,  and  look  down  on  the  glassy  surface  and  wonder 
if  under  that  glassy  surface  there  is  not  some  rest  for  a 
broken  heart. 

Lorenzo  de  Medici  was  very  sick,  and  some  of  his  super- 
stitious friends  thought  if  they  could  dissolve  a  certain  num- 
ber of  pearls  in  a  cup  and  then  he  would  drink  them,  it 
would  cure  him  of  the  disease.  So  they  went  around  and 
they  gathered  up  all  the  beautiful  pearls  they  could  find,  and 
they  dissolved  them  in  a  cup,  and  the  sick  man  drank  them. 
Oh,  it  was  an  expensive  draught.  But  I  tell  you  of  a  more 
expensive  draught  than  that.  Drunkenness  puts  into  its 
cup  the  pearl  of  physical  health,  the  pearl  of  domestic  hap- 
piness, the  pearl  of  respectability,  the  pearl  of  Christian 
hope,  the  pearl  of  an  everlasting  heaven,  and  presses  it  to 
the  hot  lips. 

I  tell  you  the  dram-shop  is  the  gate  of  hell.  The  trouble  is 
they  do  not  put  up  the  right  kind  of  a  sign.  They  have  a 
great  many  different  kinds  of  signs  now  on  places  where 
strong  drink  is  sold.  One  is  called  the  "  restaurant,"  and 
another  is  called  the  "  saloon,"  and  another  is  called  the 
"  hotel,"  and  another  is  called  the  "  wine-cellar,"  and  another 
is  called  the  "sample-room."  What  a  name  to  give  one  of 
those  places!  A  "  sample-room,"  I  saw  a  man  on  the  steps 
of  one  of  those  "  sample-rooms  "  the  other  day,  dead  drunk. 
I  said  to  myself :  "  I  suppose  that  is  a  sample  J"  I  tell  you  it 
is  the  gate  of  hell. 

A   CONEY   ISLAND   TRAGEDY. 

In  front  of  the  Brooklyn  Tabernacle  this  scene  occurred: 
Sabbath  morning  a  young  man  was  entering  for  divine  wor- 
ship. A  friend  passing  along  the  street  said  :  "  Joe,  come 
along  with  me  ;  I  am  going  down  to  Cone)'  Island,  and  we'll 


INTEMPERANCE.  277 

have  a  gay  Sunday."  "  No,"  replied  Joe  ;  "  I  have  started 
to  go  to  Church,  and  I  am  going  to  attend  service  here." 
"  O  Joe,"  his  friend  said,  "  you  can  go  to  Church  any  time  ! 
The  day  is  bright,  and  we'll  go  to  Coney  Island,  and  we'll 
have  a  splendid  time."  The  temptation  was  too  great,  and 
the  twain  went  to  the  beach,  spent  the  day  in  drunkenness 
and  riot.  The  evening  train  started  up  from  Brighton.  The 
young  men  were  on  it.  Joe,  in  his  intoxication,  when  the 
train  was  in  full  speed,  tried  to  pass  around  from  one  car  to 
another,  and  fell  and  was  crushed.  Under  the  lantern,  as 
Joe  lay  bleeding  his  life  away  on  the  grass,  he  said  to  his 
comrade  :  "  John,  that  was  a  bad  business,  your  taking  me 
away  from  church  ;  it  was  a  very  bad  business.  You  ought 
not  to  have  done  that,  John.  I  want  you  to  tell  the  boys 
to-morrow  when  you  see  them  that  rum  and  Sabbath-break- 
ing did  this  for  me.  And,  John,  while  you  are  telling  them, 
I  will  be  in  hell,  and  it  will  be  your  fault." 


BEATS   THE   BARD   OF  AVON. 

The  greatest  of  dramatists,  in  the  tragedy  of  the  Tempest, 
sends  staggering  across  the  stage  Stephano,  the  drunken 
butler  ;  but  across  the  stage  of  human  life  strong  drink  sends 
kingly  and  queenly  and  princely  natures  staggering  forward 
against  the  footlights  of  conspicuity,  and  then  staggering 
back  into  failure,  till  the  world  is  impatient  for  their  disap-. 
pearance,  and  human  and  diabolic  voices  join  in  hissing  them 
off  the  stage. 

A  TRAGEDY   IN   FIVE   ACTS. 

Act  the  first  :  A  young  man  starting  ofT  from  home ;  par- 
ents and  sisters  weeping  to  have  him  go.  Wagon  rising  over 
the  hill.  Farewell  kiss  flung  back.  Ring  the  bell  and  let 
the  curtain  fall. 

Act  the  second :  The  marriage  altar.  Full  organ.  Bright 
lights.     Long  white  veil  trailing  through  the   aisle.     Prayer 


278  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  congratulation,  and  exclamation  of,  How  well  she 
looks !" 

Act  the  third :  A  woman  waiting  for  staggering  steps. 
Old  garments  stuck  into  the  broken  window-pane.  Marks  of 
hardship  on  the  face.  The  biting  of  the  nails  of  bloodless 
fingers.  Neglect  and  cruelty  and  despair.  Ring  the  bell 
and  let  the  curtain  drop. 

Act  the  fourth  :  Three  graves  in  a  dark  place — grave  of 
the  child  that  died  for  lack  of  medicine,  grave  of  the  wife 
that  died  of  a  broken  heart,  grave  of  the  man  that  died  of 
dissipation.  Oh,  what  a  blasted  heath  with  three  graves  ! 
Plenty  of  weeds,  but  no  flowers.  Ring  the  bell  and  let  the 
curtain  drop. 

Act  the  fifth  :  A  destroyed  soul's  eternity.  No  light.  No 
music.  No  hope.  Anguish  coiling  its  serpents  around  the 
heart.  Blackness  of  darkness  forever.  But  I  cannot  look 
any  longer.  Woe  !  woe  !  I  close  my  eyes  to  this  last  act  of 
the  tragedy.  Quick!  Quick!  Ring  the  bell  and  let  the 
curtain  drop.  "  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth;  and 
let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth;  but  know 
thou,  that  for  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judg- 
ment." "  There  is  a  way  which  seemeth  right  unto  a  man, 
but  the  end  thereof  are  the  ways  of  death." 


A  WRECK. 

A  man  was  found  at  the  foot  of  Canal  Street.  As  they 
picked  him  up  from  the  water,  and  brought  him  to  the 
Morgue,  they  saw  by  the  contour  of  his  forehead  that  he  had 
great  mental  capacity.  He  had  entered  the  newspaper  pro- 
fession. He  had  gone  down  in  health.  He  took  to  artificial 
stimulus.  He  went  down  further  and  further,  until  one 
summer  day,  hot  and  hungry,  and  sick  and  in  despair,  he 
flung  himself  off  the  dock.  They  found  in  his  pocket  a  re- 
]:)orter's  pad,  a  lead-pencil,  a  photograph  of  some  one  who 
had  loved  him  loner  aero. 


INTEMPERANCE.  2'/() 


NO   STOPPING. 


So  far  back  as  959  King  Edgar  of  England  made  a  law 
that  the  drink-cup  should  have  pins  fastened  at  a  certain 
point  in  the  side,  so  that  the  indulger  might  be  reminded  to 
stop  before  he  got  to  the  bottom.  But  there  are  no  pins 
projecting  from  the  sides  of  the  modern  wine-cup  or  beer- 
mug,  and  the  first  point  at  which  millions  stop  is  at  the 
gravelly  bottom  of  their  own  grave. 

"  You  must  stop  drinking,"  says  the  doctor,  "  and  quit  the 
fast  life  you  are  leading,  or  it  will  destroy  you."  The  patient 
suffers  paroxysm  after  paroxysm,  but  under  skilful  medical 
treatment  he  begins  to  sit  up,  begins  to  walk  about  the 
room,  begins  to  go  to  business.  And,  lo  I  he  goes  back  to 
the  same  grog-shops  for  his  morning  dram,  and  his  evening 
dram,  and  the  drams  between.  Flat  down  again.  Same 
doctor.     Same  physical  anguish.     Same  medical  warning. 

Now  the  illness  is  more  protracted,  the  liver  is  more  stub- 
born, the  stomach  more  irritable,  and  the  digestive  organs 
are  more  rebellious.  But  after  a  while  he  is  out  again,  goes 
back  to  the  same  dram  shops,  and  goes  the  same  round  of 
sacrilege  against  his  physical  health. 

He  sees  that  his  downward  course  is  ruining  his  house- 
hold, that  his  life  is  a  perpetual  perjury  against  his  marriage 
vow,  that  that  broken-hearted  woman  is  so  unlike  the  roseate 
young  wife  that  he  married,  that  her  old  schoolmates  do  not 
recognize  her,  that  his  sons  are  to  be  taunted  for  a  lifetime 
by  the  father's  drunkenness,  that  the  daughters  are  to  pass 
into  life  under  the  scarification  of  a  disreputable  ancestor. 
He  is  drinking  up  their  happiness,  their  prospects  for  this 
life,  and  perhaps,  for  the  life  to  come.  Sometimes  an  ap- 
preciation of  what  he  is  doing  comes  upon  him.  His  nervous 
system  is  all  a  jangle.  From  crown  of  head  to  sole  of  foot 
he  is  one  aching,  rasping,  crucifying,  damning  torture. 
Where  is  he?     In  hell  on  earth.     Does  it  reform  him  ? 

After  a  while  he  has  delirium  tremens,  with  a  whole  jungle 
of  hissing  reptiles  let  out  on  his  pillow,  and  his  screams  hor- 


280  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

rify  the  neighbors  as  he  dashes  out  of  his  bed,  crying: 
"Take  these  things  off  me  !"  As  he  sits,  pale  and  convales- 
cent, the  doctor  says  :  "  Now  I  want  to  have  a  plain  talk 
with  you,  my  dear  fellow.  The  next  attack  of  this  kind  you 
will  have  you  will  be  beyond  all  medical  skill,  and  you  will 
die.  He  gets  better  and  goes  forth  into  the  same  round 
again.  This  time  medicine  takes  no  effect.  Consultation  of 
physicians  agree  in  saying  there  is  no  hope.  Death  ends 
the  scene. 

AN   IMPORTANT   DISCOVERY. 

Dr.  Sax,  of  France,  has  recently  discovered  something 
which  all  drinkers  ought  to  know.  He  has  found  out  that 
alcohol  in  every  shape,  whether  of  wine  or  brandy  or  beer, 
contains  parasitic  life  called  bacillus  potumania,'.  By  a  power- 
ful microscope  these  living  things  are  discovered,  and  when 
you  take  strong  drink  you  take  them  into  the  stomach,  and 
then  into  your  blood,  and  getting  into  the  crimson  canals  of 
life  they  go  into  every  tissue  of  your  body,  and  your  entire 
organism  is  taken  possession  of  by  these  noxious  infinitesi- 
mals. When  in  delirium  tremens  a  man  sees  every  form  of 
reptilian  life,  it  is  only  these  parasites  of  the  brain  in  exag- 
gerated size.  It  is  not  a  hallucination  that  the  victim  is  suf- 
fering from.  He  only  sees  in  the  room  what  is  actually 
crawling  and  rioting  in  his  own  brain.  Every  time  you  take 
strong  drink  you  swallow  these  maggots,  and  every  time  the 
imbiber  of  alcohol  in  any  shape  feels  vertigo  or  rheumatism 
or  nausea,  it  is  only  the  jubilee  of  these  maggots.  Efforts 
are  being  made  for  the  discovery  of  some  germicide  that  can 
kill  the  parasites  of  alcoholism,  but  the  only  thing  that  will 
ever  extirpate  them  is  abstinence  from  alcohol  and  teetotal 
abstinence,  to  which  I  would  before  God  swear  all  these 
young  men  and  old. 

A   DREADFUL   CROP. 

America  is  a  fruitful  countr\-,  and  we  raise  large  crops  of 
wheat   and   corn   and  oats,  but  the  largest  crt)p  wc  raise  in 


INTEMPERANCE.  28 1 

this  country  is  tJic  crop  of  drunkards.  With  sickle  made  out 
of  the  sharp  edges  of  the  broken  glass  of  bottle  and  demi- 
john they  are  cut  down,  and  there  are  whole  swathes  of  them, 
whole  winrows  of  them,  and  it  takes  all  the  hospitals  and 
penitentiaries  and  grave-yards  and  cemeteries  to  hold  this 
harvest  of  hell.  Some  of  you  are  going  down  under  this 
evil,  and  the  never-dying  worm  of  alcoholism  has  wound 
around  you  one  of  its  coils,  and  by  next  New  Year's  Day  it 
will  have  another  coil  around  you,  and  it  will  after  a  while 
put  a  coil  around  your  tongue  and  a  coil  around  your  brain 
and  a  coil  around  your  lung  and  a  coil  around  your  foot  and 
a  coil  around  your  heart ;  and  some  day  this  never-dying 
worm  will  with  one  spring  tighten  all  the  coils  at  once,  and 
in  the  last  twist  of  that  awful  convolution  you  will  cry  out, 
"  Oh,  my  God  !"  and  be  gone. 

THE   HISTORY   OF  A   FRIEND. 

I  could  give  you  the  history  of  one  of  the  best  friends  I 
ever  had.  Outside  of  my  own  family  I  never  had  a  better 
friend.  He  welcomed  me  to  my  home  at  the  West.  He 
was  of  splendid  personal  appearance,  but  he  had  an  ardor  of 
soul  and  a  warmth  of  affection  that  made  me  love  him  like 
a  brother.  I  saw  men  coming  out  of  the  saloons  and  gamb- 
ling-hells, and  they  surrounded  my  friend,  and  they  took  him 
at  the  weak  point — his  social  nature — and  I  saw  him  going 
down,  and  I  had  a  fair  talk  with  him — for  I  never  yet  saw  a 
man  you  could  not  talk  with  on  the  subject  of  his  habits,  if 
you  talked  with  him  in  the  right  way.  I  said  to  him,  "  Why 
don't  you  give  up  your  bad  habits  and  become  a  Christian  ?" 
I  remember  now  just  how  he  looked,  leaning  over  his  coun- 
ter, as  he  replied,  "  I  wish  I  could.  Oh,  sir,  I  should  like  to 
be  a  Christian,  but  I  have  gone  so  far  astray  I  can't  get 
back!" 

So  the  time  went  on.  After  a  while  the  day  of  sickness 
came.  I  was  summoned  to  his  sick-bed.  I  hastened.  It 
took  me  but  a  very  few  moments  to  get  there.  I  was  sur- 
prised as  I  went  in.     I  saw  him  in  his  ordinary  dress,  fully 


282  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

dressed,  lying  on  top  of  the  bed.  I  gave  hinn  my  hand,  and 
he  seized  it  convulsively  and  said,  "  Oh,  how  glad  I  am  to 
see  you!  Sit  down  there."  I  sat  down,  and  he  said,  "Mr. 
Talmage,  just  where  you  sit  now  my  mother  sat  last  night. 
She  has  been  dead  twenty  years.  Now,  I  don't  want  you  to 
think  I  am  out  of  my  mind,  or  that  I  am  superstitious ;  but, 
sir,  she  sat  there  last  night,  and  she  said,  '  Roswell,  I  wish 
you  would  do  better — I  wish  you  would  do  better.'  I  said, 
*  Mother,  I  wish  I  could  do  better;  I  try  to  do  better,  but  I 
can't.  Mother,  you  used  to  help  me;  why  can't  you  help 
me  now?'  And,  sir,  I  got  out  of  bed,  for  it  was  a  reality, 
and  I  went  to  her,  and  threw  my  arms  around  her  neck,  and 
I  said,  '  Mother,  I  will  do  better,  but  you  must  help ;  I  can't 
do  this  alone.'  "  I  knelt  and  prayed.  That  night  his  soul 
went  to  the  Lord  that  made  it.  Arrangements  were  made 
for  the  obsequies.  The  question  was  raised  whether  they 
should  bring  him  to  the  church.  Somebody  said,  "  You  can- 
not bring  such  a  dissolute  man  as  that  into  the  church."  I 
said,  "  You  will  bring  him  in  church ;  he  stood  by  me  when 
he  was  alive,  and  I  will  stand  by  him  when  he  is  dead.  Bring 
him."  As  I  stood  in  the  pulpit  and  saw  them  carrying  the 
body  up  the  aisle,  I  felt  as  if  I  could  weep  tears  of  blood. 

On  one  side  the  pulpit  sat  his  little  child  of  eight  years,  a 
sweet,  beautiful  little  girl,  that  I  have  seen  him  hug  convul- 
sively in  his  better  moments.  He  put  on  her  all  jewels,  all 
diamonds,  and  gave  her  all  pictures  and  toys,  and  then  he 
would  go  away,  as  if  hounded  by  an  evil  spirit,  to  his  cups 
and  the  house  of  shame — a  fool  to  the  correction  of  the 
stocks.  She  looked  up  wonderingly.  She  knew  not  what 
it  all  meant.  She  was  not  old  enough  to  understand  the 
sorrow  of  an  orphan.  On  the  other  side  sat  the  men  who 
ruined  him ;  they  were  the  men  who  had  poured  the  worm 
wood  into  the  orphan's  cup  ;  they  were  the  men  who  had 
bound  him  hand  and  foot.  I  knew  them.  How  did  they 
seem  to  feel  ?  Did  they  weep  ?  No.  Did  they  say,  "  What 
a  pity  that  so  generous  a  man  should  be  destroyed  ?''  No. 
Did  they  sigh  repentingly  over  what  they  had  done?  No; 
they  sat  there,  looking  as  vultures  look  at  the  carcass  of  a 


INTEMPERANCE.  283 

lamb  whose  heart  they  have  ripped  out.  So  they  sat  and 
looked  at  the  coffin-lid,  and  I  told  them  the  judgment  of 
God  upon  those  who  had  destroyed  their  fellows.  Did  they 
reform  ?  I  was  told  they  were  in  the  places  of  iniquity  that 
night  after  my  friend  was  laid  in  Oakwood  Cemetery,  and 
they  blasphemed  and  they  drank.  Oh,  how  merciless  men 
are,  especially  after  they  have  destroyed  you  !  Do  not  look 
to  men  for  comfort  or  help. 

That  friend,  whom  I  cannot  think  of  without  emotion, 
was  a  Samson  in  strength,  but  Delilah  sheared  him,  and  the 
Philistines  put  his  eyes  out,  and  they  threw  him  into  prison, 
and  he  made  sport  for  them  ;  but  in  the  hour  of  his  death 
he  rose  up  and  took  hold  of  the  two-pillared  curse  of  God 
against  intemperance  and  threw  himself  forward,  and  down 
upon  him  and  upon  his  comrades  came  the  crashing  thun- 
ders of  eternal  catastrophe. 

OTHER   VICTIMS. 

Others  are  ruined  by  the  common  and  all-destructive 
habit  of  treating  customers.  And  it  is  a  treat  on  their  com- 
ing to  town,  a  treat  while  the  bargaining  progresses,  a  treat 
when  the  purchase  is  made,  and  a  treat  as  he  leaves  town. 
Others,  to  drown  their  troubles,  submerge  themselves  with 
this  worse  trouble.  Oh,  the  world  is  battered  and  bruised 
and  blasted  with  this  growing  evil.  It  is  more  and  more  en- 
tranced and  fortified.  They  have  millions  of  dollars  sub- 
scribed to  marshal  and  advance  the  alcoholic  forces.  They 
nominate  and  elect,  and  govern  the  vast  majority  of  the 
office-holders  of  this  country.  On  their  side  they  have  en- 
listed the  mightiest  political  power  of  the  centuries.  And 
behind  them  stand  all  the  myrmidons  of  the  nether  world, 
Satanic  and  Apollyonic  and  diabolic.  It  is  beyond  all  hu- 
man effort  to  overthrow  this  Bastile  of  decanters  or  capture 
this  Gibraltar  of  rum  jugs.  And  while  I  approve  of  all  hu- 
man agencies  of  reform,  I  would  utterly  despair  if  we  had 
nothing  else.  But  what  cheers  me  is  that  our  best  troops 
are   yet   to  come.      Our  chief  artillery  is   in   reserve.     Our 


284  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

greatest  commander  has  not  yet  fully  taken  the  field.  If  a 
hell  is  on  their  side,  all  heaven  is  on  our  side.  Now  "  Let 
God  arise,  and  let  His  enemies  be  scattered." 

AN   EMBLEM    FROM    EGYPT. 

"And  there  shall  be  a  great  cry  throughout  all  the  land  of  Egj'^pt." 
— Exodus  11:6. 

This  was  the  worst  of  the  ten  plagues.  The  destroying 
angel  at  midnight  flapped  his  wing  over  the  land,  and  there 
was  one  dead  in  each  house.  Lamentation  and  mourning 
and  woe  through  all  Egypt.  That  destroying  angel  has  fled 
the  earth,  but  a  far  worse  has  come.  He  sweeps  through 
these  cities.  It  is  the  destroying  angel  of  strong  drink.  Far 
worse  devastation  wrought  by  this  second  than  by  the  first. 
The  calamity  in  America  worse  than  the  calamity  in  Egypt. 
Thousands  of  the  slain,  millions  of  the  slain.  No  arithmetic 
can  calculate  their  number. 

Who  could  think  that  the  ripe  clusters  of  the  vineyard 
and  the  golden  sheaves  of  the  harvest  field  could  be  used  for 
the  world's  damage  and  the  world's  death? 

Once  upon  a  time  four  fiends  met  in  the  lost  world.  They 
resolved  that  the  people  of  our  earth  were  too  happy,  and 
these  four  infernals  came  forth  to  our  earth  on  embassy  of 
mischief.  The  one  fiend  said  :  "  I'll  take  charge  of  the  vine- 
yards." Another  said,  "  I'll  take  charge  of  the  grain  fields." 
Another  said,  "  I'll  take  charge  of  the  dairy."  Another  said, 
"  I'll  take  charge  of  the  music."  The  four  fiends  met  in  the 
great  Sahara  Desert,  with  skeleton  fingers  clutched  each 
other  in  handshake  of  fidelity,  kissed  each  other  good-by 
with  lip  of  blue  flame,  and  parted  on  their  mission. 

The  fioid  of  the  vineyard  came  in  one  bright  morning 
amid  the  grapes,  and  sat  down  on  a  root  of  twisted  grapevine 
in  sheer  discouragement.  The  fiend  knew  not  how  to  damage 
the  vineyard,  or,  through  it,  how  to  damage  the  world.  The 
grapes  were  so  ripe  and  beautiful  and  luscious.  They  be- 
W'itched  the  air  with  their  sweetness.  There  seemed  to  be 
so  much  health   in  every  bunch  ;  and  while    the   fiend   sat 


INTEMPERANCE.  28  5 

here  in  utter  indignation  and  disappointment,  he  clutched  at 
cluster  and  squeezed  it  in  perfect  spite,  and  lo  !  his  hand  was 
red  with  the  blood  of  the  vineyard,  and  the  fiend  said : 
"  That  reminds  me  of  the  blood  of  broken  hearts;  I'll  strip 
the  vineyard  and  I'll  squeeze  out  all  the  juice  of  the  grapes, 
and  I'll  allow  the  juices  of  the  grapes  to  stand  until  they  rot, 
and  I'll  call  the  process  fermentation."  And  there  was  a 
great  vat  prepared,  and  people  came  with  their  cups  and 
their  pitchers,  and  they  dipped  up  the  blood  of  the  grapes, 
and  they  drank  and  drank  and  went  away  drinking,  and  they 
drank  until  they  fell  in  long  lines  of  death,  so  that  when  the 
fiend  of  the  vineyard  wanted  to  return  to  his  home  in  the 
pit,  he  stepped  from  carcass  to  carcass  and  walked  down 
amid  a  great  causeway  of  the  dead. 

Then  the  second  fiend  came  into  the  grain  field.  He 
waded  chin-deep  amid  the  barley  and  the  rye.  He  heard  all 
the  grain  talking  about  bread,  and  prosperous  husbandry, 
and  thrifty  homes.  He  thrust  his  long  arms  into  the  grain 
field  and  pulled  up  the  grain  and  threw  it  into  the  water 
and  made  beneath  it  great  fires — fires  lighted  with  a  spark 
from  his  own  heart — and  there  was  a  grinding,  and  a 
mashing,  and  a  stench,  and  the  people  came  with  their 
bottles  and  they  dipped  up  the  fiery  liquid,  and  they  drank, 
and  they  blasphemed,  and  they  staggered,  and  they  fought, 
and  they  rioted,  and  they  murdered,  and  the  fiend  of  the 
pit,  the  fiend  of  the  grain  field,  was  so  pleased  with  their 
behavior  that  he  changed  his  residence  from  the  pit  to  a 
whiskey  barrel,  and  there  he  sat  by  the  door  of  the  bung- 
hole  laughing  in  high  merriment  at  the  thought  that  out  of 
anything  so  harmless  as  the  grain  of  the  field  he  might  turn 
this  world  into  a  seeming  pandemonium. 

The  fiend  of  the  dairy  S2i\v  the  cows  coming  home  from 
the  pasture-field,  full-uddered,  and  as  the  maid  milked  he 
said  :  *'  I'll  soon  spoil  all  that  mess  ;  I'll  add  to  it  brandy, 
sugar,  and  nutmeg,  and  I'll  stir  it  into  a  milk  punch,  and 
children  will  drink  it,  and  some  of  the  temperance  people  will 
drink  it,  and  if  I  can  do  them  no  more  harm,  I'll  give  them  a 
headache,  and  then  I'll  hand  them  over  to  the  more  vigor- 


28G  TKUMPET  VEALS. 

ous  fiends  of  the  Satanic  delegation."  And  then  the  fiend 
of  the  dairy  leaped  upon  the  shelf  and  danced  until  the  long 
row  of  shining  miikpans  almost  quaked. 

The  fiend  of  the  vmsic  entered  a  grogshop,  and  there  were 
but  few  customers.  Finding  few  customers  he  swept  the 
circuit  of  the  city,  and  he  gathered  up  the  musical  instru- 
ments, and  after  nightfall  he  marshalled  a  band,  and  the 
trombones  blew,  and  the  cymbals  clapped,  and  the  drums 
beat,  and  the  bugles  called,  and  the  people  crowded  in,  and 
they  swung  around  in  merry  dance,  each  one  with  a  wine- 
glass in  his  hand  ;  and  the  dance  became  wilder  and  stronger 
and  rougher  until  the  room  shook,  and  the  glasses  cracked 
and  the  floor  broke,  and  the  crowd  dropped  into  hell. 

Then  the  four  fiends — the  fiend  of  the  vineyard,  and  of 
the  grain  field,  and  of  the  dairy,  and  of  the  music  hall — went 
back  to  their  home,  and  they  held  high  carnival  because  their 
work  had  been  so  well  done ;  and  Satan  rose  from  his  throne 
and  announced  that  there  was  no  danger  of  the  earth's 
redemption  so  long  as  these  four  fiends  could  pay  such 
tax  to  the  diabolic.  And  then  all  the  demons,  and  all  the 
sprites,  and  all  the  fiends  filled  their  glasses  and  clicked 
them,  and  cried  :  "  Let  us  drink — drink  to  the  everlasting 
prosperity  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Here's  to  woe,  and  dark- 
ness, and  murder,  and  death.     Drink  !     Drink  !" 

But  whether  by  allegory  or  by  appalling  statistics  this 
subject  is  presented,  you  know  as  well  as  I  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  exaggerate  the  evils  of  strong  drink.  A  plague  !  A 
plague  !  I  shall  show  you  that  it  is  a  plague  of  suffering  to 
the  inebriate. 


LOSS   OF  GOOD  NAME. 

God  has  so  arranged  it  that  no  man  loses  his  reputation  ex- 
cept by  his  own  act.  The  world  may  assault  a  man,  and  all  the 
powers  of  darkness  may  assault  him— they  cannot  capture 
him  so  long  as  his  heart  is  pure  and  his  life  is  pure.  All  the 
powers  of  earth  and  hell  cannot  take  that  Gibraltar.  If  a 
man  is  right,  all  the  bombardment  of  the  world  fui   \\\^:,  ten, 


INTEMFEKANCE.  287 

twenty,  forty  years  will  only  strengthen  him  in  his  position. 
So  that  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  keep  yourself  right.  Never 
mind  the  world.  Let  it  say  what  it  will.  It  can  do  you  no 
damage.  But  as  soon  as  it  is  whispered  "  he  drinks,"  and  it 
can  be  proved,  he  begins  to  go  down. 

What  clerk  can  get  a  position  with  such  a  reputation  ? 
What  store  wants  him  ?  What  Church  of  God  wants  him  for 
a  member?  What  dying  man  wants  him  for  an  executor? 
"  He  drinks  !"  Young  man,  your  reputation  is  your  capital. 
Your  father  gave  you  a  good  education,  or  as  good  an  edu- 
cation as  he  could  afford  to  give  you.  He  started  you  in 
city  life.  He  could  furnish  you  no  means,  but  he  has  sur- 
rounded you  with  Christian  influences  and  a  good  memory 
of  the  past.  Now,  young  man,  under  God  you  are  with 
your  own  right  arm  to  achieve  your  fortune,  and  as  your 
reputation  is  your  capital,  do  not  bring  upon  it  suspicion  by 
going  in  and  out  of  liquor  establishments,  or  by  an  odor  of 
your  breath,  or  by  any  glare  of  your  eye,  or  by  any  unnat- 
ural flush  on  your  cheeks.  You  lose  your  reputation  and 
you  lose  your  capital. 

The  subject  comes  over  me  like  the  waves  of  the  Atlan- 
tic for  power.  O  !  when  I  see  the  influences  abroad  in  Brook- 
lyn and  New  York  to  destroy  young  men,  I  hardly  know 
what  to  say.  For  the  young  men  themselves  all  sympathy 
have  I,  and  all  compassion.  For  those  who  deal  out  the 
deadly  stuff,  all  pity  that  they  should  bring  upon  themselves 
the  condemnation  of  good  society  and  the  retributions  of 
God.  But  for  the  liquor  establishments  themselves,  for  the 
rum-selling  restaurants,  may  God  Almighty  consume  them 
with  the  brightness  of  His  coming. 

LOSS   OF   SELF-RESPECT. 

The  inebriate  suffers  also  the  plague  in  the  fact  that  he 
loses  his  self-respect,  and  when  you  destroy  a  man's  self- 
respect  there  is  not  much  left  of  him.  Just  as  soon  as  a 
man  finds  he  is  a  slave,  he  loses  his  self-respect.  Then  a 
man  will  do  things  he  would  not  do  otherwise,  he  will  say 


288  TKUMrET  PEALS. 

thiiiLjs  he  would  not  say  otherwise.  He  has  lost  his  self-re- 
spect. 

The  fact  is  that  man  cannot  stop,  or  he  would  stop  now. 
He  is  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  Philistines,  and  they  have 
siiorn  his  locks  and  put  his  eyes  out,  and  made  him  grind  in 
the  viill  of  a  great  horror.  After  he  is  three-fourths  gone  in 
this  slavery,  the  first  thing  he  will  be  anxious  to  impress  you 
with  is  that  he  can  stop  at  any  time  he  wants  to.  His  fam- 
ily become  alarmed  in  regard  to  him,  and  they  say  :  "  Now 
do  stop  this  ;  after  a  while,  it  will  get  the  mastery  of  you." 
"  O  !  no,"  he  says,  "  I  can  stop  at  any  time  ;  I  can  stop  now, 
I  can  stop  to-morrow  ;  I  can  stop  at  any  time."  His  most 
confidential  friends  say  :  "  Why,  I'm  afraid  you  are  losing 
your  balance  with  that  habit  ;  you  are  going  a  little  further 
than  you  can  afford  to  go  ;  you  had  better  stop."  "  O  I  no," 
he  says,  "  I  can  stop  at  any  time  ;  I  can  stop  now."  He 
goes  on  further  and  further. 

He  cannot  stop.  I  will  prove  it.  He  loves  himself,  and 
he  knows  nevertheless  that  strong  drink  is  depleting  him  in 
body,  mind,  and  soul.  He  knows  he  is  going  down,  that  he 
has  less  self-control,  less  equipoise  of  temper  than  he  used  to. 
Why  does  he  not  stop?  Because  he  cannot  stop.  I  will 
prove  it  by  going  still  further.  He  loves  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren. He  sees  that  his  habits  are  bringing  disgrace  upon 
his  home.  The  probabilities  are  they  will  ruin  his  wife  and 
disgrace  his  children.  He  sees  all  this,  and  he  loves  them. 
Why  does  he  not  stop  ?     He  cannot  stop. 

I  had  a  very  dear  friend,  generous,  to  a  fault.  He  had 
given  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  Bible 
societies,  tract  societies,  missionary  societies,  asylums  for  the 
poor,  the  halt,  the  lame,  the  blind,  the  imbecile.  I  do  not 
believe  for  twenty  years  anybody  asked  him  for  a  dollar  or 
fifty  dollars,  or  a  hundred  dollars  for  charity  but  he  gave  it. 
I  never  heard  of  anybody  asking  him  for  help,  but  he  gave 
it.  But  he  was  under  the  power  of  strong  drink,  and  he 
went  on  down,  down,  down.  His  family  implored  him,  say- 
ing: "  You  are  going  too  far  in  that  habit;  you  had  better 
stop."     He  replied:  "I  can  stop  anytime:   I  am  m)-  own 


INTEMPERANCE.  289 

master;  I  can  stop."  He  went  on  down,  down.  His  friends 
advised  and  cautioned  him.  He  said  :  "  Don't  be  afraid  of 
me  ;  I  am  my  own  master ;  I  can  stop  now  ;  I  know  what  I 
am  doing."  He  went  on  down  until  he  had  the  delirium 
tremens.  On  down  until  he  had  the  delirium  tremens  twice. 
After  the  second  time  the  doctor  said  :  "  If  you  ever  have 
an  attack  like  this  again  you  will  die  ;  you'd  better  stop." 
He  said  :  "I  can  stop  any  time  ;  lean  stop  now."  He  went 
on  down.  He  is  dead.  What  slew  him?  Rum!  Rum! 
Among  the  last  things  he  said  was  that  he  could  stop  any 
time.     He  could  not  stop.     He  could  not  stop. 

O  my  young  friends,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  there  is  a 
point  in  inebriation  beyond  which  if  a  mango  he  cannot  stop. 
But  sometimes  a  man  will  be  more  frank  than  that.  A  vic- 
tim of  strong  drink  said  to  a  reformer :  "  It  is  impossible  for 
me  to  stop  ;  I  realize  it.  But  if  you  should  tell  me  I  couldn't 
have  a  drink  until  to-morrow  night  unless  I  had  all  my  fin- 
gers cut  off,  I  would  say,  '  Bring  the  hatchet  and  cut  them 
off.  * "  I  had  a  very  dear  friend  in  Philadelphia  whose  nephew 
came  to  him  and  was  talking  about  his  trouble  and  con- 
fessed it.  He  confessed  he  could  not  stop.  My  friend  said, 
"  You  must  stop."  He  said,  "  I  can't  stop.  If  there  stood 
a  cannon,  and  it  was  loaded,  and  there  was  a  glass  of  wine  on 
the  mouth  of  the  cannon,  and  I  knew  you  would  fire  it  off  if 
I  approached,  I  would  start  to  get  that  glass  of  wine.  I 
must  have  it.  I  can't  get  rid  of  this  habit.  I  can't  get  away 
from  it."  O  !  it  is  awful  for  a  man  to  wake  up  and  feel  that 
he  is  a  captive.  I  hear  him  soliloquizing,  saying  :  "  I  might 
have  stopped  three  months  ago,  but  I  can't  stop  now.  Dead 
but  not  buried.  I  am  a  walking  corpse.  I  am  an  apparition 
of  what  I  once  was.  I  am  a  caged  immortal  and  my  soul 
beats  against  the  wires  of  my  cage  on  this  side  and  beats 
against  the  wires  of  my  cage  on  the  other  side,  until  there  is 
blood  on  the  wires,  and  blood  on  the  soul,  but  I  can't  get 
out.     Destroyed  without  remedy  !" 


290  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

LOSS  OF  USEFULNESS. 

Do  you  know,  some  of  the  men  who  have  fallen  into  the 
ditch  were  once  in  the  front  rank  in  churches  and  in  the  front 
rank  in  reformatory  institutions  ?  Do  you  know  they  once 
knelt  at  the  family  altar,  and  once  carried  the  chalice  of  the 
holy  communion  on  sacramental  days?  Do  you  know  they 
once  stood  in  the  pulpit  and  preached  the  Gospel  of  the  Son 
of  God. 

We  will  not  forget  the  scene  witnessed  four  or  five  years 
ago  in  church  when  a  man  rose  in  the  midst  of  the  audience, 
stepped  into  the  aisle,  and  walked  up  and  down.  Everybody 
saw  that  he  was  intoxicated.  The  ushers  led  him  out,  and 
his  poor  wife  took  his  hat  and  overcoat  and  followed  him  to 
the  door.  Who  was  he  ?  He  had  once  been  a  mighty  min- 
ister of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  had  often  preached  in  this 
very  city.      Wliat  slnv  him  ?     Strong  drink. 

O  !  what  must  be  the  feeling  of  a  man  who  has  destroyed 
his  capacity  for  usefulness  ?  Do  not  be  angry  with  that 
man.  Do  not  lose  your  patience  with  him.  Do  not  wonder 
if  he  says  strange  things  and  gets  irritated  easily  in  the  fam- 
ily. He  has  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Andes,  and  the  Alps,  and 
the  Himalayas  on  him.  Do  not  try  to  "persuade  him  that 
there  is  no  future  punishment.  Do  not  go  into  any  argu- 
ment to  prove  to  him  that  there  is  no  hell.  He  knows  there 
is.     He  is  there  now! 

LOSS   OF  PHYSICAL   HEALTH. 

The  older  people  in  this  audience  can  remember  Doctor 
Sewell  going  through  this  country  electrifying  great  audi- 
ences by  demonstrating  to  them  the  effect  of  strong  drink 
upon  the  human  stomach,  I  am  told  he  had  eight  or  ten 
diagrams  which  he  presented  to  the  people,  showing  the 
different  stages  in  the  progress  of  the  disease,  and  I  am  told 
tens  of  thousands  of  people  turned  back  from  that  ulcerous 
sketch  and  swore  eternal  abstinence  from  all  intoxicants. 
God  only  knows  what  the  drunkard   suffers.     Pain  files  on 


IXTEMPERANCE.  29 1 

every  nerve,  and  travels  every  muscle,  and  gnaws  on  every 
bone,  and  stings  with  every  poison,  and  pulls  with  every  tor- 
ture. What  reptiles  crawl  over  his  shivering  limbs  !  What 
spectres  stand  by  his  midnight  pillows  !  What  groans  tear 
the  air !  Talk  of  the  rack,  talk  of  the  funeral  pyre,  talk  of 
the  Juggernaut — he  suffers  them  all  at  once. 

See  the  attendants  stand  back  from  tJiat  ivard  in  the  hos- 
pital where  the  inebriates  are  dying.  They  cannot  stand  it. 
The  keepers  come  through  it  and  say:  "Hush  up,  now, 
stop  making  this  noise.  Be  still !  You  are  disturbing  all 
the  other  patients.  Keep  still  now !"  Then  the  keepers 
pass  on,  and  after  they  get  past  then  the  poor  creatures 
wring  their  hands  and  say:  "O!  God.  Help,  help  !  Give 
me  rum,  give  me  rum  !  O  !  God.  Help !  Take  the  devils 
off  of  me.  O  !  God.  O  !  God."  And  they  shriek,  and  they 
blaspheme,  and  they  cry  for  help,  and  then  they  ask  the 
keepers  to  slay  them,  saying :  "  Stab  me,  strangle  me, 
smother  me.  O!  God.  Help,  help!  Rum!  Give  me  rum. 
O  !  God.  Help  !"  They  tear  out  their  hair  by  the  handful, 
and  they  bite  their  nails  into  the  quick.  "  O  !  God,"  they 
say,  "help!  O!  God,  help,  help,  help  !"  This  is  no  fancy 
picture.  It  is  transpiring  in  a  hospital  at  this  moment.  It 
went  on  last  night  while  you  slept  ;  and  more  than  that,  that 
is  tJic  death  some  of  yon  zvill  die  unless  you  stop  !  I  see  it 
coming.  God  help  you  to  stop  before  you  go  so  far  that 
you  cannot  stop. 

LOSS   OF   HOME. 

I  do  not  care  how  much  a  man  loves  his  wife  and  child- 
ren, if  this  habit  gets  the  mastery  over  him — this  habit  of 
strong  drink — he  will  do  the  most  outrageous  things.  If 
need  be,  in  order  to  get  strong  drink  he  would  sell  them  all 
into  everlasting  captivity.  There  are  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  homes  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  that  have  been 
utterly  blasted  of  it.  I  am  speaking  of  no  abstraction.  Is 
there  anything  so  disastrous  to  a  man  for  this  life  and  for  the 
life  to  come?     Do  you  tell  me  that  a  man   can  be  happy 


292  TRUMPl:'r  PKALS. 

when  he  knows  he  is  breaking  his  wife's  heart  and  clothing 
his  children  with  rags?  There  are  little  children  in  the 
streets  to-day,  barefooted,  unkempt,  uncombed,  want  writ- 
ten on  every  patch  of  their  faded  dress,  and  on  every  wrinkle 
of  their  prematurely  old  countenance,  who  would  have  been 
in  the  house  of  God  this  morning  as  well  clad  as  you  had  it 
not  been  that  strong  drink  drove  their  parents  down  into 
penury  and  then  down  into  the  grave.  O  !  rum,  rum,  thou 
despoiler  of  homes,  thou  foe  of  God,  thou  recruiting  officer 
of  the  pit,  I  hate  thee,  I  hate  thee ! 

LOSS  OF  THE  SOUL. 

But  my  subject  takes  a  deeper  tone  when  it  tells  you  that 
the  inebriate  suffers  the  loss  of  the  soul.  The  Bible  inti- 
mates that  if  we  go  into  the  future  world  unforgiven  the  ap- 
petites and  passions  which  were  regnant  here  will  torment 
us  there.  I  suppose  when  the  inebriate  wakes  up  in  the  lost 
world,  there  will  be  an  infinite  thirst  clawing  upon  him.  In 
this  world  he  could  get  strong  drink.  However  poor  he  was 
in  this  world,  he  could  beg  or  he  could  steal  five  cents  to  get 
a  drink  that  would  for  a  little  while  slake  his  thirst;  but  in 
eternity  where  will  the  rum  come  from  ?  Dives  wanted  one 
drop  of  water,  but  could  not  get  it.  Where  will  the  inebri- 
ate get  the  draught  he  so  much  requires,  so  much  demands. 
No  one  to  brew  it.  No  one  to  mix  it.  No  one  to  pour  it. 
No  one  to  fetch  it.  Millions  of  worlds  now  for  the  dregs 
that  were  thrown  on  the  sawdusted  floor  of  the  restaurant. 
Millions  of  worlds  now  for  the  rind  flung  out  from  the  punch- 
bowl of  an  earthly  banquet.  Dives  called  for  water.  The 
inebriate  calls  for  rum. 

If  a  fiend  from  the  lost  world  should  come  up  on  a  mis- 
sion to  a  grog-shop,  and  havini:;  finished  the  mission  in  the 
grog-shop,  should  come  back,  taking  on  the  tip  of  his  wing 
one  drop  of  alcoholic  beverage,  what  excitement  it  would 
make  all  through  the  world  of  the  lost ;  and  if  that  one  drop 
of  alcoholic  beverage  should  drop  from  the  wing  of  the  fiend 
upon  the  tongue  of  the   inebriate,  how  he  woultl  spring  up 


INTEMPERANCE.  293 

and  cry  :  "That's  it ;  that's  it !  Rum  !  Rum  !  That's  it !" 
And  all  the  caverns  of  the  lost  would  echo  with  the  cry, 
"Give  it  to  me.  Rum!  Rum!"  Ah!  my  friends,  the  in- 
ebriate's sorrow  in  the  next  world  will  not  be  the  absence  of 
God,  or  holiness,  or  light  ;  it  will  be  the  absence  of  rum. 
"  Look  not  thou  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it 
giveth  his  color  in  the  cup,  when  it  moveth  itself  aright ;  at 
the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent,  and  stingeth  like  an  adder." 

When  I  see  this  plague  in  the  land,  and  when  I  see  this 
destroying  angel  sweeping  across  our  great  cities,  I  am  some- 
times indignant,  and  sometimes  humiliated.  When  a  man 
asks  me  :  "  What  are  you  in  favor  of  for  the  subjugation  of 
this  evil  ?"  I  answer,  "  I  am  ready  for  anything  that  is  rea- 
sonable." You  ask  me  "  Are  you  in  favor  of  Sons  of  Tem- 
perance ?"  Yes.  "  Are  you  in  favor  of  Good  Samaritans  ?" 
Yes.  "  Are  you  in  favor  of  Good  Templars  ?"  Yes.  "Are 
you  in  favor  of  a  prohibitory  law?"  Yes.  "Are  you  in 
favor  of  the  pledge  ?"  Yes.  Combine  all  the  influences,  O 
Christian  reformers  and  philanthropists.  Combine  them  all 
for  the  extirpation  of  this  evil. 

Thirty  women  in  one  of  the  Western  States  banded  to- 
gether, and  with  an  especial  ordination  from  God  they  went 
forth  to  the  work  and  shut  up  all  the  grog-shops  of  a  large 
village.  Thirty  women,  with  their  song  and  with  their  prayer ; 
and  if  one  thousand  or  two  thousand  Christian  men  and 
women  with  an  especial  ordination  from  God  should  go  forth 
feeling  the  responsibility  of  their  work  and  discharging  their 
mission,  they  could  in  this  city  shut  up  all  the  grog-shops, 
put  an  end  to  this  mighty  vice  of  strong  drink,  and  redeem 
our  beloved  city. 

But  I  must  not  dwell  on  generalities;  I  must  come  to 
specifics.  If  there  is  any  sermon  I  dishke  it  is  a  sermon  on 
generalities.     I  want  personalities. 

ARE   YOU   ASTRAY?    BEWARE ! 

I  must  say  that  unless  you  quit  this  evil  habit,  within  ten 
years,  as  to   your  body,  you  will  lie  down  in  a  drunkard's 


294  TRUMTET  PEALS. 

grave,  and  as  to  your  immortal  soul,  you  will  lie  down  in  a 
drunkard's  hell !  It  is  n;  hard  tJiing  to  say,  but  it  is  true,  and 
I  utter  the  warning  lest  I  have  your  blood  upon  my  soul. 
Beware!  As  to-day  you  open  the  door  of  your  wine  closet, 
let  the  decanter  flash  that  word  upon  your  soul,  "  Beware  I" 
As  you  pour  out  the  beverage  let  the  foam  at  the  top  spell 
out  the  word,  "  Beware!"  In  the  great  day  of  God's  judg- 
ment, when  a  hundred  million  drunkards  shall  come  up  to 
get  their  doom,  I  want  you  to  testify  that  in  love  of  your 
soul  and  in  fear  of  God,  I  gave  you  warning  in  regard  to  that 
influence  which  has  already  been  felt  in  your  home,  blowing 
out  some  of  its  lights — premonition  of  the  blackness  of  dark- 
ness forever. 

O  !  if  you  could  only  hear  Intemperance  with  drunkards' 
bones  drnnuning  on  the  top  of  the  ivine  cask  the  dead  march  of 
the  immortal  souls,  you  would  kneel  down  and  pray  God 
that  rather  than  }'Our  children  should  ever  become  the  vic- 
tims of  this  evil  habit,  you  might  carry  them  out  to  Green- 
wood and  put  them  down  in  the  last  slumber,  waiting  for 
the  flowers  of  spring  to  come  over  the  grave — sweet  prophe- 
cies of  the  resurrection.  God  hath  a  balm  for  such  a  wound, 
but  what  flower  of  comfort  ever  grew  on  the  blasted  heath 
of  a  drunkard's  sepulchre  ? 

Is  it  not  time  for  me  to  pull  out  from  the  great  organ  of 
God's  Word,  with  many  banks  of  keys,  the  tremulo  stop  ? 
"  Look  not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it  moveth 
itself  aright  in  the  cup,  for  at  the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent 
and  stingeth  like  an  adder."  Ay,  is  it  not  time  for  me  to 
pull  out  the  trumpet  stop?  "Awake,  ye  drunkards,  and 
weep  ;  and  howl,  all  ye  drinkers  of  wine." 

WINE-DRINKING   CONVIVIALITIES. 

Away  with  these  wine-drinking  convivialities !  How  dare 
you,  the  father  of  a  household,  trifle  with  the  appetites  of 
our  young  people?  Perhaps  out  of  regard  for  the  minister, 
or  some  other  weak  temperance  man,  }'ou  have  the  decanter 
in  a  side-room,  where,  after  refreshments,  onl\-  a  select   few 


INTEMPERANCE.  295 

are  invited  ;  and  you  come  back  with  a  glare  in  your  eye  and 
a  stench  in  your  breath  that  show  that  you  have  been  out 
serving;  the  devil.  The  excuse  which  Christian  men  often 
give  for  this  is,  that  it  is  necessary,  after  such  late  eating,  by 
some  sort  of  stimulant  to  help  digestion.  My  plain  opinion 
is  that,  if  a  man  have  no  more  control  over  his  appetite  than 
to  stuff  himself  until  his  digestive  organs  refuse  to  do  their 
office,  he  ought  not  to  call  himself  a  man,  but  rather  to  class 
himself  among  the  beasts  that  perish.  I  take  the  words  of 
the  Lord  Almighty,  and  cry:  "Woe  unto  him  that  giveth 
his  neighbor  drink,  that  puttest  thy  bottle  to  him !" 

HOLIDAY  TEMPTATIONS. 

Young  man,  take  it  as  the  counsel  of  a  friend  when  I  bid 
you  be  cautious  where  you  spend  your  winter  evenings. 
Thank  God  that  you  have  lived  to  see  the  glad  winter  days 
in  which  your  childhood  was  made  cheerful  by  the  faces  of 
fathers  and  mothers,  brothers  and  sisters,  some  of  whom, 
alas !  will  never  again  wish  you  a  "  Happy  New  Year  "  or  "  A 
Merry  Christmas."  Let  no  one  tempt  you  out  of  your  so- 
briety. I  have  seen  respectable  young  men  of  the  best  fami- 
lies drunk  on  New  Year's  Day.  The  excuse  they  gave  for 
the  inebriation  w^as  that  the  ladies  insisted  on  their  taking  it. 
There  have  been  instances  where  the  delicate  hand  of  woman 
hath  kindled  a  young  man's  taste  for  strong  drink,  who  after 
many  years,  when  the  attractions  of  that  holiday  scene  were 
all  forgotten,  crouched,  in  her  rags  and  her  desolation  and 
her  woe,  under  the  uplifted  hand  of  the  drunken  monster 
who,  on  that  New  Year's  morning  so  long  ago,  took  the  glass 
from  her  hand.  And  so  the  woman  stands  on  the  abutment 
of  the  bridge  on  the  moonlit  night,  wondering  if  down  un- 
der the  water  there  is  not  some  quiet  place  for  a  broken 
heart.     She  takes  one  wild  leap — and  all  is  over ! 

THE   pawnbroker's   SPOILS. 

Oh,  mingle  not  with  the  harmless  beverage  of  your  fes- 
tive scene  this  poison  of  adders!     Mix  not  with  the  white 


296  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

sugar  of  the  cup  the  snow  of  this  awful  leprosy !  Mar  not 
the  clatter  of  cutlery  at  the  holiday  feast  with  the  clink  of 
a  madman's  chain  !  Stop  and  look  into  the  window  of  that 
pawnbroker's  shop.  Elegant  furs.  Elegant  watches.  Ele- 
gant scarfs.  Elegant  flutes.  People  stand  with  a  pleased 
look  gazing  at  these  things  ;  but  I  look  with  a  shudder,  as 
though  I  had  seen  into  a  window  of  hell.  Whose  elegant 
watch  was  that  ?  It  was  a  drunkard's.  Whose  furs  ?  They 
belonged  to  a  drunkard's  wife.  Whose  flute  ?  Whose  shoes? 
Whose  scarf?  They  belonged  to  a  drunkard's  child.  If  I 
could  I  would  take  the  three  brazen  balls  hanging  at  the 
doorway  and  clang  them  together  until  they  tolled  the  awful 
knell  of  the  drunkard's  soul.  The  pawnbroker's  shop  is  only 
one  eddy  of  the  great  stream  of  municipal  drunkenness. 

NOBLE  ALTRUISM. 

Stand  back,  young  man  !  Take  not  the  first  step  in  the 
path  that  leads  there.  Let  not  the  flame  of  strong  drink 
ever  scorch  your  tongue.  You  may  tamper  with  these  things 
and  escape,  but  your  influence  will  be  wrong.  Can  you  not 
make  a  sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others  ?  When  the  good 
ship  London  went  down  the  captain  was  told  that  there  was 
a  way  of  escape  in  one  of  the  life-boats.  He  said  :  "  No,  I 
will  go  down  with  the  passengers."  All  the  world  acknowl 
edged  that  heroism. 

THE   BRAND   ON   THE   BARREL. 

Can  you  not  deny  yourself  insignificant  indulgences  for 
the  good  of  others  ?  Be  not  allured  by  the  fact  that  you 
drink  only  the  moderate  beverages.  You  take  only  ale,  and 
a  man  has  to  drink  a  large  amount  of  it  to  become  intoxi- 
cated. Yes  ;  but  there's  not  in  all  the  city  to-day  an  inebriate 
that  did  not  begin  with  ale.  "  XXX  " — what  does  that  mark 
mean?  "XXX"  on  the  beer  barrels;  "XXX"  on  the 
brewer's  dray  ;  "  XXX  "  on  the  door  of  the  gin  shop ; 
"  XXX  "  on  the  side  of  the  bottle.     Not  beinj:  able  to  find 


INTEMPERANCE.  297 

any  one  who  could  tell  me  what  this  mark  means,  I  have  had 
to  guess  that  the  whole  thing  was  an  allegory :  "  XXX  " — 
that  is,  thirty  heart-breaks,  thirty  agonies,  thirty  desolated 
homes,  thirty  chances  for  a  drunkard's  grave,  thirty  ways  to 
perdition.  "XXX!"  If  I  were  to  write  a  story,  the  first 
chapter  would  be  "  XXX,"  the  last  the  pawnbroker's  shop. 
Be  watchful !  At  this  season  all  the  allurements  to  dissipa- 
tion will  be  especially  busy.  Let  not  your  flight  to  hell  be 
in  the  winter. 


TEMPTATIONS   OF   YOUNG   WRITERS   FOR   THE   PRESS. 

To  bear  up  under  the  tremendous  nervous  strain,  they 
are  tempted  to  artificial  stimulus,  and  how  many  thousands 
have  gone  down  under  that  pressure  God  only  knows.  They 
must  have  something  to  counteract  the  wet,  they  must  have 
something  to  keep  out  the  chill,  and  after  a  scant  night's 
sleep  they  must  have  something  to  revive  them  for  the  morn- 
ing's work.  This  is  what  made  Horace  Greeley  such  a  stout 
temperance  man.  He  told  me  that  he  had  seen  so  many  of 
his  comrades  go  down  under  that  temptation. 

O  my  brother  of  the  newspaper  profession,  what  you  can- 
not do  without  artificial  stimulus,  God  does  not  want  you  to 
do !  There  is  no  halfway  ground  for  our  literary  people  be- 
tween teetotahsm  and  dissipation.  Your  professional  suc- 
cess, your  domestic  peace,  your  eternal  salvation,  will  de- 
pend upon  your  theories  in  regard  to  artificial  stimulus.  I 
have  had  so  many  friends  go  down  under  the  temptation, 
their  brilliancy  quenched,  their  homes  blasted,  that  I  cry  out 
in  the  words  of  another:  "Look  not  thou  upon  the  wine 
when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  its  color  in  the  cup  ;  at  the  last 
it  biteth  like  a  serpent,  and  stingeth  like  an  adder." 

LOVES   A   "SHINING   MARK." 

"Oh,"  says  some  man,  "I  am  kind,  I  am  indulgent  to 
my  family,  I  am  right  in  many  respects,  I  am  very  generous, 
and  I  have  too  grand  and  generous  a    moral  nature  to  be 


298  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

overthrown  in  that  way."  Let  me  say  that  the  persons  who 
are  in  the  most  peril  have  the  largest  hearts,  the  best  educa- 
tion, the  brightest  prospects.  This  sin  chooses  the  fattest 
lambs  for  its  sacrifice.  The  brightest  garlands  are  by  this 
carbuncled  hand  of  drunkenness  torn  off  the  brow  of  the 
poet  and  the  orator,  Charles  Lamb,  answer !  Thomas  Hood, 
answer!  Sheridan,  the  English  orator,  answer!  Edgar  A. 
Poe,  answer!     Thomas  Marshall,  answer! 

Oh,  come  and  look  over  into  it  while  I  draw  off  the  cover 
— hang  over  it  and  look  down  into  it,  and  see  the  seething, 
boiling,  loathsome,  smoking,  agonizing,  blaspheming  hell  of 
the  drunkard.  Young  man,  be  master  of  your  appetites 
and  passions.  Oh,  there  are  hundreds — might  I  not  say 
thousands? — of  young  men  in  this  house  this  morning — 
young  men  of  fair  prospects.  Put  your  trust  in  the  Lord 
God,  and  all  is  well.  But  yoii  tvill  be  tempted.  Perhaps  }'ou 
may  this  moment  be  addressed  on  the  first  Sabbath  of  your 
coming  to  the  great  city,  and  I  give  you  this  brotherly  counsel. 
I  speak  not  in  a  perfunctory  way.  I  speak  as  an  older 
brother  talks  to  a  younger  brother.  I  put  my  hand  on  your 
shoulder  this  day  and  commend  you  to  Jesus  Christ,  who 
Himself  was  a  young  man  and  died  while  yet  a  young  man. 
and  has  sympathy  for  all  young  men.  O  !  be  master,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  of  your  appetites  and  passions  ! 

STUDENT  VICTIM. 

When  I  ivas  at  school  in  New  Brunswick,  I  heard  of  an 
incident  that  occurred  one  evening,  of  a  young  man  brought 
home  by  his  comrades  from  a  place  of  evil  entertainment. 
the  young  man  intoxicated  and  helpless.  I  had  the  house 
pointed  out  to  me  the  next  day,  where  he  was  carried  up 
the  steps;  then  his  comrades  rang  the  door-bell,  and  father 
and  mother  came  down,  and  the  comrades  pitched  the 
young  man  into  the  door-way,  and  said,  "  There  he  is,  drunk 
as  a  fool.     Ha !  ha  I" 


INTEMPERANCE.  299 


THE   CONTRAST. 


Oh,  it  is  beautiful  to  see  a  young  man  standing  upright 
where  thousands  of  other  young  men  fall !  You  will  move 
in  honorable  circles  all  your  days,  and  some  old  friend  of 
your  father  will  meet  you,  and  say :  "  My  son,  how  glad  I 
am  to  see  you  look  so  well.  Just  like  your  father,  for  all  the 
world.  I  thought  you  would  turn  out  well  when  I  used  to 
hold  you  on  my  knee." 

But  here  is  a  young  man  who  takes  the  other  route. 
The  voices  of  sin  charm  him  away.  He  reads  bad  books, 
lives  in  vicious  circles,  loses  the  glow  from  his  cheek,  the 
sparkle  from  his  eye,  and  the  purity  from  his  soul.  The 
good  shun  him.  Down  he  goes,  little  by  little.  They  who 
knew  him  when  he  came  to  town,  while  yet  lingering  on  his 
head  was  a  pure  mother's  blessing,  and_on  his  lip  the  dew  of 
a  pure  sister's  kiss,  now  pass  him  and  say:  "What  an  awful 
wreck  !"  His  eyes  bleared  with  frequent  carousals,  his  cheek 
bruised  in  the  grog-shop  fight,  his  lip  swollen  with  evil  indul- 
gences. Look  out  what  you  say  to  him  :  for  a  trifle  he  will 
take  your  life.  Lower  down  and  lower  down  ;  until,  outcast 
of  God  and  man,  he  lies  in  the  almshouse  a  blotch  of  loath- 
someness. 

Sometimes  he  calls  out  for  God,  and  then  for  more  drink. 
Now  he  prays,  now  curses,  now  laughs  as  fiends  laugh,  then 
bites  his  nails  to  the  quick,  then  runs  both  hands  through 
the  shock  of  hair  that  hangs  about  his  head  like  the  mane 
of  a  wild  beast,  then  shivers  until  the  cot  shakes  with  unut- 
terable terror  ;  then,  with  uplifted  fist,  fights  back  the  devils 
or  clutches  the  serpents  that  seem  winding  him  in  their 
coil ;  then  asks  for  water,  which  is  instantly  consumed  by  his 
cracked  lips.  Going  his  round  some  morning,  the  surgeon 
finds  him  dead.  Straighten  the  limbs.  You  need  not  try  to 
comb  out  or  shove  back  the  matted  locks.  Wrap  him  in  a 
sheet.  Put  him  in  a  box.  Two  men  will  carry  it  down  to 
the  wagon  at  the  door.  With  chalk  write  on  the  top  of  the 
box  the  name  of  the  destroyed.  Do  you  know  who  it  is? 
That  is  you,  O  man,  if,  yielding  to  the  temptations  to  a  disi- 


3CX)  TJWMPET  PEALS. 

patcd  life,  you    go  out  and    perish.     There    is  a  way   that 
seemeth  briirht  and  fair,  but  the  end  thereof  is  death. 


RECKLESS   INFATUATION. 

Alas  I  how  many  take  no  warning.  They  make  me  think 
ofCaisaron  his  way  to  assassination,  fearing  nothing;  though 
his  statue  in  the  hall  crashed  into  fragments  at  his  feet,  and 
a  scroll  containing  the  names  of  the  conspirators  was  thrust 
into  his  hands,  yet  walking  right  on  to  meet  the  dagger  that 
was  to  take  his  life.  This  infatuation  of  strong  drink  is  so 
mighty  in  many  a  man  that  though  his  fortunes  are  crashing, 
and  his  health  is  crashing,  and  his  domestic  interests  are 
crashing,  and  we  hand  him  a  long  scroll  containing  the  names 
of  perils  that  ^wait  him,  he  goes  straight  on  to  physical 
and  mental  and  moral  assassination.  In  proportion  as  any 
style  of  alcoholism  is  pleasant  to  your  taste,  and  stimulating 
to  your  nerves,  and  for  a  time  delightful  to  all  your  ph)-sical 
and  mental  constitution,  is  the  peril  awful.  Remember  Jon- 
athan and  the  forbidden  honey  in  the  woods  of  Beth-aven. 

THE   PLUNGE. 

Life  is  full  of  excitement  and  full  of  mirth.  Checks  flush. 
Eyes  flash.  W^itch-chain  jingles.  Cup  foams.  They  swag- 
ger, they  jostle  decent  men  off  the  sidewalk,  they  blaspheme 
God,  they  parody  the  hymn  they  learned  at  their  mother's 
knee;  and  when  }-ou  point  out  the  perils  of  their  course, 
they  say,  "Who  cares?"  And  when  you  counsel  them  to 
do  right,  they  say,  "Who  are  you?"  Some  night,  going 
down  the  street,  }'ou  hoar  a  shriek  in  a  grog-shop,  and  the 
rattle  of  the  watchman's  club,  and  the  rush  of  the  police. 
What  is  the  matter!  A  young  man  killed  in  a  grog-shop 
fight.  Carry  him  home  to  his  father's  house.  Father  and 
and  mother  will  come,  and  they  will  wash  the  blood  ofT  the 
wounds  and  close  the  eyes  in  death  ;  and  they  will  forgive 
him,  though  he  cannot  ask  now  to  be  forgiven. 

The  mother  will  '.'<><Mit  in  the  irardcn  and  "athcr  the  most 


INTEMPERANCE.  3OI 

beautiful  flowers  she  can  find,  and  she  will  twist  them  into  a 
chaplet  and  lay  them  on  his  silent  heart,  and  brush  back  from 
his  bloated  brow  the  long  locks  which  were  once  her  pride, 
and  the  air  will  resound  with  the  father's  cry,  "  O  my  son, 
my  poor  son !" 

BROKEN  HEARTS. 

There  is  many  a  young  man  proud  of  his  mother,  who 
would  strike  into  the  dust  any  man  who  would  insult  her, 
who  is  at  this  moment  himself,  by  his  evil-doing  and  his  bad 
habits,  sharpening  a  dagger  to  plunge  through  that  mother's 
heart.  A  telcgravi  brought  in  from  afar.  He  went  bloated 
and  scarred  into  the  room  and  he  stood  by  the  lifeless  form 
of  his  mother. 

Her  hair  gray;  it  had  turned  gray  in  sorrow.  Those 
eyes  had  wept  floods  of  tears  over  his  wandering.  That  still 
white  hand  had  done  him  many  a  kindness  and  had  written 
many  a  loving  invitation  and  good  counsel.  He  had  broken 
her  old  heart.  He  came  into  the  room  and  threw  himself 
on  the  casket  and  he  sobbed  outright :  "  Mother,  mother  !" 
But  those  lips  that  had  kissed  him  in  infancy  and  uttered  so 
many  kind  words  spake  not :  they  were  sealed.  Rather  than 
have  such  a  memory  come  on  my  soul,  I  would  prefer  to  have 
roll  over  on  me  the  Alps  and  the  Himalayas. 

A  young  man,  through  the  intercession  of  metropolitan 
friends,  gets  a  place  in  a  bank  or  store.  He  is  going  to  leave 
his  country  home.  That  morning,  they  are  up  early  in  the 
old  homestead.  The  trunk  is  on  the  wagon.  Mother  says  : 
"  My  son,  I  put  a  Bible  in  the  trunk,  I  hope  you  will  read  it 
often."  She  wipes  the  tears  away  with  her  apron.  "  Oh," 
he  says,  "  come,  don't  you  be  worried,  I  know  how  to  take 
care  of  myself.  Don't  be  worried  about  me."  The  father 
says :  "  My  son,  be  a  good  boy  and  write  home  often,  your 
mother  will  be  anxious  to  hear  from  you."  Crack  !  goes  the 
whip,  and  over  the  hills  goes  the  wagon.  Five  years  have 
passed  on,  and  a  dissipated  life  has  done  its  work  for  that  young 
man.     There  is  a  hearse  coming  up  in  front  of  the  old  home- 


303  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

stead.  The  young  men  of  the  neighborhood  who  have  stayed 
on  the  farm  come  in  and  say  :  "Is  it  possible?  Why,  he 
doesn't  look  natural,  does  he  ?  Is  that  the  fair  brow  we  used 
to  know?  is  that  the  healthy  cheek  we  used  to  know?  It 
can't  be  possible  that  is  he."  The  parents  stand  looking  at 
the  gash  in  the  forehead  from  which  the  life  oozed  out,  and 
they  lift  their  hands  and  say :  "  O  my  son  Absalom,  my  son, 
my  son  Absalom  ;  would  God  I  had  died  for  thee,  O  Absa- 
lom, my  son,  my  son." 


STOP  IN  TIME. 

Here  is  a  young  man  who  says :  "  I  cannot  see  why  they 
make  such  a  fuss  about  the  intoxicating  cup.  Why,  it  is  ex- 
hiliarating.  It  makes  me  feel  well.  I  can  talk  better, 
think  better,  feel  better,  I  cannot  see  why  people  have 
such  a  prejudice  against  it."  A  few  years  pass  on  and 
he  wakes  up  and  finds  himself  in  the  clutches  of  an  e\il 
habit  which  he  tries  to  break  but  cannot ;  and  he  cries  out : 
"  O  Lord  God,  help  me !"  It  seems  as  though  God  would 
not  hear  his  prayer,  and  in  an  agony  of  body  and  soul  he 
cries  out :  "  It  bitcth  like  a  serpent  and  it  stingcth  like  an 
adder." 

YOUNG   MEN  OF  AMERICA, 

pass  over  into  the  army  of  teetotalism.  Whiskey,  good  to 
preserve  corpses,  ought  never  to  turn  you  into  a  corpse. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  have  been  dragged  out  of 
respectability,  and  out  of  purity,  and  out  of  good  character, 
and  into  darkness  by  this  infernal  stuff  called  strong  drink. 
Do  not  touch  it !     Do  not  touch  it ! 

A  PERORATION. 

Ministers  and  speakers  are  very  apt  to  close  with  a  perora- 
tion, and  they  generally  roll  up  some  grand  imager}'  to  ex- 
press   ^\■hat   they  ha\e  to    say.     I    close   with  a  peroration 


INTEMPERANCE.  303 

mightier  than  was  ever  uttered  by  mere  human  h'ps.  Two 
quotations.  The  first  is  this:  "  Who  hath  woe?  who  hath  bab- 
bhng?  who  hath  wounds  without  cause  ?  They  that  tarry 
long  at  the  wine,  they  that  go  to  seek  mixed  wine.  Look 
not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  its 
color  in  the  cup,  for  at  the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent 
and  stingeth  like  an  adder."  This  is  the  other  quotation. 
Make  up  your  mind  as  to  which  is  the  more  impressive.  I 
think  the  last  is  the  mightier :  ''  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in 
thy  youth,  and  let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth,  and  walk  thou  in  the  sight  of  thine  own  eyes ;  but 
know  thou  that  for  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into 
judgment." 

YOUR   ONLY   HOPE. 

Have  you  gone  so  far  you  think  you  cannot  get  back  ? 
Did  I  say  that  a  man  might  go  to  a  point  in  inebriation 
where  he  could  not  stop  ?  Yes,  I  said  it,  and  I  reiterate  it ; 
but  I  want  you  also  to  understand  that  while  the  man  him- 
self, of  his  own  strength,  cannot  stop,  God  can  stop  any 
man.  You  have  only  to  lay  hold  of  the  strong  arm  of  the 
Lord  God  Almighty.     He  can  stop  you.      Yoit  cannot. 

A  few  summers  ago  I  went  over  to  New  York  one  Sab- 
bath evening,  and,  in  a  room  in  the  Fourth  Ward,  New 
York,  where  a  religious  service  was  being  held  for  reformed 
drunkards,  I  heard  a  revelation  that  I  had  never  heard  before 
— fifteen  or  twenty  men  standing  up  and  testifying  not  only 
that  their  hearts  had  been  changed  by  the  grace  of  God,  but 
that  the  grace  of  God  had  extinguished  their  thirst.  They 
went  on  to  say  that  they  had  reformed  at  different  times 
before,  but  immediately  fallen,  because  they  were  doing  the 
whole  work  in  their  own  strength  :  "  But  as  soon  as  we  gave 
our  hearts  to  God,"  they  said,  "  and  the  love  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  has  come  into  our  soul,  the  thirst  has  all  gone. 
We  have  no  more  disposition  for  strong  drink." 

It  was  a  new  revelation  to  me,  and  I  have  proclaimed  it 
again  and  again  in  the  hearing;  of  those  who  have  far  gone 


304  TRUMPET  ri-.AI.S. 

astray  ;  and  I  .stand  here  to-day  to  tell  you  that  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  can  not  only  save  your  soul,  but 
save  your  body.  I  look  off  to-day  upon  the  desolation. 
Some  of  you  are  far  on  in  this  habit,  although  there  may 
be  no  outward  indications  of  it — you  never  have  staggered 
along  the  street — the  vast  majority  of  people  do  not  know 
that  you  stimulate  ;  but  God  knows,  and  you  know  ;  and  by 
human  calculations  there  is  not  one  chance  out  of  five  thou- 
sand that  you  will  ever  be  stopped. 

ANOTHER   CASE   TO   THE   POINT. 

There  is  a  man  who  was  for  ten  years  a  hard  drinker. 
The  dreadful  appetite  had  sent  down  its  roots  around  the 
palate  and  the  tongue,  and  on  down  until  they  vvcre  inter- 
linked with  the  vitals  of  body,  mind,  and  soul  ;  but  he  has 
not  taken  any  stimulants  for  two  years.  What  did  that? 
Not  temperance  societies.  Not  prohibition  laws.  Not  moral 
suasion.     Conversion  did  it. 

I  could  tell  you  of  a  tragic  scene,  when  once  at  the  close 
of  the  service  I  found  a  man  in  one  of  the  front  seats, 
wrought  upon  most  mightily.  I  said  to  him,  "What  is  the 
matter?"  He  replied,  "  I  am  a  captive  of  strong  drink;  I 
came  from  the  West ;  I  thought,  perhaps,  you  could  do  me 
some  good ;  I  find  you  can't  do  me  any  good  ;  I  find  there 
is  no  hope  for  me."  I  said,  "  Come  into  this  side  room  and 
we  will  talk  together." 

"  Oh,  no,"  he  said,  "  there's  no  need  of  my  going  in  ;  I  am 
a  lost  man  ;  I  have  a  beautiful  wife;  I  have  four  beautiful 
children  ;  I  had  a  fine  profession  ;  I  have  had  a  thorough 
education  ;  I  had  every  opportunity  a  man  ever  had,  but  I 
am  a  captive  of  strong  drink ;  God  only  knows  what  I 
suffer." 

I  said,  "  Be  encouraged ;  come  in  here,  and  we'll  talk  to- 
gether about  it."  "  No,"  he  said,  "  I  can't  come ;  you  can't 
do  me  any  good.  I  was  on  the  Hudson  River  Railroad  yester- 
day, and  coming  down,  I  resolved  never  again  to  touch  a  drop 
of  strong  drink.     While   I   sat  there  a  man  came  in— a  low 


IN  TEMPERA  NCE.  305 

creature — and  sat  by  me ;  he  had  a  whiskey  flask,  and  he 
said  to  mc  :  '  Will  you  take  a  drink?  '  I  said  '  no  ;'  but  oh, 
how  I  wanted  it !  and  as  I  said  no,  it  seemed  that  the  liquor 
curled  up  around  the  mouth  of  the  flask  and  begged,  '  Take 
me  !  take  me  !  take  me  ! '  I  felt  I  couldn't  resist  it,  and  yet 
I  was  determined  not  to  drink,  and  I  rushed  out  on  the 
platform  of  the  car,  and  I  thought  I  would  jump  ofT ;  we 
were  going  at  the  rate  of  forty  miles  an  hour,  and  I  didn't 
dare  to  jump ;  the  paroxysm  went  off,  and  I  am  here  to- 
night." 

I  said,  "  Come  in,  I'll  pray  for  you,  and  commend  you  to 
God."  He  came  in  trembling.  Some  of  you  remember. 
After  the  service,  we  walked  up  the  street.  I  said,  "  You 
have  an  awful  struggle.  I'll  take  you  into  a  drug-store  ; 
perhaps  the  doctor  can  give  you  some  medicine  that  will 
help  you  in  your  struggle,  though,  after  all,  you  will  have  to 
depend  upon  the  grace  of  God."  I  said  to  the  doctor,  "  Can 
you  give  this  man  something  to  help  him  in  his  battle 
against  strong  drink  ?"  "  I  can,"  replied  the  doctor,  and  .he 
prepared  a  bottle  of  medicine.  I  said,  "  There  .is  no  alcohol 
in  this — no  strong  drink?"  "  None  at  all,"  said  the  doctor. 
"How  long  will  this  last?"  I  inquired.  "It  will  la.st  him  a 
week."     "  O  I"  I  said,  "  give  us  another  bottle." 

We  passed  out  into  the  street  and  stood  under  the  gas- 
light. It  was  getting  late,  and  I  said  to  the  man,  "  I  must 
part  with  you.  Put  your  trust  in  the  Lord,  and  He  will  see 
you  through.  You  will  make  use  of  this  medicine  when  the 
paroxysm  of  thirst  comes  on."  A  few  weeks  passed  away, 
and  I  got  a  letter  from  Boston  saying,  "  Dear  friend,  I  en- 
close the  money  you  paid  for  that  medicine.  I  have  never 
used  any  of  it.  The  thirst  has  entirely  gone  away  from  me. 
I  send  you  two  or  three  newspapers  to  .show  you  what  I 
have  been  doing  since  I  came  to  Boston."  I  opened  the 
newspapers  and  saw  accounts  of  meetings  of  two  or  three 
thousand  people  to  whom  this  man  had  been  preaching 
righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to  come.  I  have 
heard  from  him  again  and  again  since.  He  is  faithful  now, 
and  will  be,  I  know,  faithful  to  the  last.  O  this  work  of 
soul-saving ! 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Corrupt    Literature. 

The  printing-press  is  the  mightiest  agency  on  earth  for 
good  or  evil.  The  position  of  a  minister  of  rchgion  standing 
in  his  pulpit  is  a  responsible  position,  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  so  responsible  a  position  as  that  of  the  editor  and  the  pub- 
lisher. At  what  distant  point  of  time,  at  what  distant  cycle 
of  eternity,  will  cease  the  influence  of  the  four  great  departed 
editors  of  New  York — Henry  J.  Raymond,  Horace  Greeley, 
James  Gordon  Bennett,  and  William  Cullen  Bryant  ?  Men 
die,  but  the  literary  influences  they  project  go  on  forever. 

Taking  into  consideration  the  fact  that  there  are  now 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  dailies  with  a  circulation  of  over 
five  hundred  thousand  copies,  and  taking  into  consideration 
that  there  arc  three  weekly  periodicals  with  about  one  mil- 
lion of  circulation,  I  want  you  to  sit  down  and  cipher  out,  if 
you  can,  how  far  up,  and  how  far  down,  and  how  far  out 
reaches  the  influence  of  the  American  printing-press.  I  be- 
lieve that  God  has  made  the  printing-press  to  be  the  chief 
agent  in  the  world's  correction  and  evangelization,  and  that 
the  great  final  battle  of  the  world  will  be  fought,  not  with 
guns  and  swords,  but  with  types  and  presses,  a  gospelized 
and  purified  literature  triumphing  over  and  trampling  under 
foot  and  crushing  out  a  corrupt  literature.  God  speed  the 
cylinders  of  an  honest,  intelligent,  aggressive,  Christian  print- 
ing-press ! 

MULTIPLICATION   OF   ROOKS. 

"Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end."— Ecclesiastes  12  :  12. 

This  was  written  centuries  before  the  art  of  printing  was 
invented,  and  in  ages  of  the  world  when  books  were  chiselled 
in    stone,    and    baked  in   clay   and  impressed    in  wax,   and 

306 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  307 

scratched  on  the  bark  of  trees,  and  written  on  parchment. 
It  was  no  unusual  thing  for  a  man  to  walk  a  hundred  miles 
to  read  a  book.  We  are  told  of  volumes  that  were  chained 
to  pillars  and  to  walls  in  order  that  men  might  make  long 
pilgrimages  and  read  them,  and  not  be  tempted  to  carry 
them  away. 

A  Sicilian  scholar  parted  with  his  entire  estate  to  get  one 
copy  of  Livy ;  Jerome  ruined  himself  financially  in  buying 
the  works  of  Origen,  and  if  in  those  ages  of  the  world  Solo- 
mon was  amazed  at  the  vast  literature  abroad,  and  said  in 
his  time,  "  of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end,"  what 
would  he  say  if  he  could  now  descend  and  make  the  tour  of  our 
American  and  English  publishing  houses  ?  Books  on  all  sub- 
jects. Books  of  all  styles.  Books  in  all  places.  Books. 
Books. 

The  greatest  blessing  that  has  come  to  this  world  since 
Jesus  Christ  came  is  good  journalism,  and  the  worst  scourge 
unclean  journalism.  You  must  apply  the  same  law  to  the 
book  and  the  newspaper.  The  newspaper  is  a  book  swifter 
and  in  more  portable  shape.  Under  unclean  literature,  un- 
der pernicious  books  and  newspapers,  tens  of  thousands  have 
gone  down  ;  the  bodies  of  the  victims  in  the  penitentiaries, 
in  the  dens  of  shame,  and  some  of  the  souls  in  the  asylums 
for  the  imbecile  and  the  insane,  more  of  the  souls  already 
having  gone  down  in  an  avalanche  of  horror  and  despair. 

The  London  plague  was  nothing  to  it.  That  counted  its 
victims  by  the  thousands  ;  this  modern  pest  shovels  its  mil- 
lions into  the  charnel-house  of  the  morally  dead.  The  long- 
est train  of  cars  that  ever  rolled  over  the  Erie  track,  or  the 
Hudson,  is  not  long  enough,  or  large  enough,  to  hold  the 
beastliness  and  the  putrefaction  which  has  been  gathered  up 
in  the  bad  books  and  newspapers  of  America  for  the  last 
twenty  years. 

A  WORSE   THAN   FROG   PLAGUE. 

There  is  almost  a  universal  aversion  to  frogs,  and  yet 
with  the  Egyptians    they   were   honored,  they  were  sacred, 


308  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

and  they  were  objects  of  worship  while  ah've,  and  after  death 
they  were  embalmed,  and  to-day  their  remains  may  be  found 
among  the  sepulchres  of  Thebes.  These  creatures,  so  at- 
tractive once  to  the  Egyptians,  at  divine  behest  became  ob- 
noxious and  loathsome,  and  they  went  croaking  and  hop- 
ping and  leaping  into  the  palace  of  the  king,  and  into  the 
bread-trays  and  the  couches  of  the  people ;  and  even  the 
ovens,  which  now  are  uplifted  above  the  earth  and  on  the 
side  of  chimneys,  then  being  small  holes  in  the  earth  with 
sunken  pottery,  were  filled  with  frogs  when  the  housekeepers 
came  to  look  at  them.  If  a  man  sat  down  to  eat,  a  frog 
alighted  on  his  plate.  If  he  attempted  to  put  on  a  shoe,  it 
was  preoccupied  by  a  frog.  If  he  attempted  to  put  his  head 
upon  a  pillow,  it  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  a  frog. 
PVogs  high  and  low  and  everywhere  ;  loathsome  frogs,  slimy 
frogs,  besieging  frogs,  innumerable  frogs,  great  plague  of 
frogs. 

What  made  the  matter  worse,  the  magicians  said  there 
was  no  miracle  in  this,  and  they  could  by  sleight-of-hand 
produce  the  same  thing,  and  they  seemed  to  succeed,  for  by 
sleight-of-hand  wonders  may  be  wrought.  After  Moses  had 
thrown  down  his  staff  and  by  miracle  it  became  a  serpent, 
and  then  he  took  hold  of  it  and  by  miracle  it  again  became 
a  staff,  the  serpent-charmers  imitated  the  same  thing,  and 
knowing  that  there  were  serpents  in  Egypt  which  by  a  pe- 
culiar pressure  on  the  neck  would  become  as  rigid  as  a  stick 
of  wood,  they  seemed  to  change  the  serpent  into  the  staff, 
and  then,  throwing  it  down,  the  staff  became  a  serpent.  So 
likewise  these  magicians  tried  to  imitate  the  plague  of  frogs, 
and  perhaps  by  smell  of  food  attracting  a  great  number  of 
them  to  a  certain  point,  or  by  shaking  them  out  from  a  hid- 
den place,  the  magicians  sometimes  seemed  to  accomplish  the 
same  miracle.  While  these  magicians  made  the  plague  worse 
none  of  them  tried  to  make  it  better. 

Now  that  plague  of  frogs  has  come  back  upon  the  earth. 
It  is  abroad  to-day.  It  is  smiting  this  nation.  It  comes  in 
the  shape  of  corrupt  literature.  These  frogs  hop  into  the 
store,  the  shop,  the  office,  the  banking-house,  the  factory — 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  309 

into  the  home,  into  the  cellar,  into  the  garret,  on  the  draw- 
ing-room table,  on  the  shelf  of  the  library.  While  the  lad  is 
reading  the  bad  book  and  the  teacher's  face  is  turned  the 
other  way  one  of  these  frogs  hops  upon  the  page.  While  the 
young  woman  is  reading  the  forbidden  novelette  after  retir- 
ing at  night,  reading  by  gaslight,  one  of  these  frogs  leaps  upon 
the  page.  Indeed,  they  have  hopped  on  the  news-stands 
of  the  country,  and  the  mails  at  the  post-ofifice  shake  out  in 
the  letter-trough  hundreds  of  them. 

The  plague  has  taken,  at  different  times,  possession  of 
this  country.  It  is  one  of  the  most  loathsome,  one  of  the 
most  frightful,  one  of  the  most  ghastly  of  the  ten  plagues  of 
our  modern  cities.  There  is  a  vast  number  of  books  and 
newspapers  printed  and  published  which  ought  never  to  see 
the  light.  They  are  filled  with  a  pestilence  that  makes  the 
land  swelter  with  a  moral  epidemic.  The  literature  of  a  na- 
tion decides  the  fate  of  a  nation.  Good  books,  good  morals. 
Bad  books,  bad  morals. 

SALACIOUS  LITERATURE. 

I  begin  with  the  lowest  of  all  the  literature,  that  which 
does  not  even  pretend  to  be  respectable — from  cover  to 
cover  a  blotch  of  leprosy.  There  are  many  whose  entire 
business  it  is  to  dispose  of  that  kind  of  literature.  They 
display  it  before  the  schoolboy  on  his  way  home.  They 
get  the  catalogues  of  colleges  and  young  ladies'  seminaries, 
take  the  names  and  the  post-office  addresses,  and  send  their 
advertisements  and  their  circulars  and  their  pamphlets  and 
their  books  to  every  one  of  them. 

The  president  of  one  of  the  finest  young  ladies'  semi- 
naries on  the  Atlantic  coast  being  absent  one  day,  one  of 
these  miscreants  came  in  and  secured  a  catalogue.  The 
president  returning  and  hearing  of  it,  had  his  fears  excited, 
and  he  reported  the  case  to  official  authority.  For  two 
weeks  that  man  was  hunted,  and  he  was  hunted  down,  and 
in  his  possession  were  found  not  only  the  catalogue  of  that 
institution,  but  the  catalogues  of  fourteen   collcfjes,  and  in 


310  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

eight  of  them  ah'cady  he  had  done  the  damning  work.  In 
the  possession  of  these  dealers  in  impure  Hterature  were 
found  nine  hundred  thousand  names  and  post-office  ad- 
dresses, to  whom  it  was  thought  it  might  be  profitable  to 
send  these  corrupt  things. 

In  the  year  1873  there  were  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
establishments  engaged  in  publishing  salacious  literature. 
From  one  publishing  house  there  went  out  twenty  different 
styles  of  corrupt  books.  Although  twenty-four  tons  of  sala- 
cious  literature  have  been  destroyed  by  the  Society  for  the 
Suppression  of  Vice,  still  there  is  enough  of  it  left  in  this 
country  to  bring  down  upon  us  the  thunderbolts  of  an  in- 
censed God.  What  has  been  very  remarkable  is  the  fact 
that  more  of  those  publishers  of  impure  literature  lived  in 
the  City  of  Brooklyn  than  any  other  city — lived  here,  did 
business  in  New  York,  had  their  factories,  some  on  this  side 
the  river,  some  on  the  other  side  the  river,  but  they  dared 
to  have  their  residences  in  this  City  of  Churches.  All  of 
them  now  driven  out,  or  for  the  most  part  driven  out,  these 
vultures  will  alight  in  other  fields,  and  they  must  be  pursued 
and  exterminated  from  Christendom. 

In  the  year  1868  the  field  had  become  so  great  in  this 
country  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  passed  a  law 
forbidding  the  transmission  of  impure  literature  through 
the  United  States  mails;  but  there  were  large  loops  in  that 
law  through  which  criminals  might  crawl  out,  and  the  law 
was  a  dead  failure — that  law  of  1868.  But  in  1873  another 
law  was  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  against 
the  transmission  of  corrupt  literature  through  the  mails — a 
grand  law,  a  potent  law,  a  Christian  law — and  under  that 
law  multitudes  of  these  scoundrels  have  been  arrested,  their 
property  confiscated,  and  they  themselves  thrown  into  the 
penitentiaries  where  they  belonged. 

Against  that  good  and  wholesome  and  Christian  law  no 
good  man  could  make  any  objection  ;  but  it  stirred  up  the 
animosity  and  the  indignation  of  a  great  many  people,  and 
they  sent  up  a  petition  to  Congress  to  compel  that  body  to 
repeal  that  good,  Christian  law.     The  petition  rolled  up  to 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  3II 

the  door  of  the  House  of  Representatives  asking  for  the 
repeal  of  the  law,  and  the  head  name  on  the  petition  was 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  the  champion  blasphemer  of  America. 
He  appealed  to  the  House  of  Representatives  with  others. 
That  body  refused  to  grant  the  petition.  Then  Mr.  Inger- 
soll made  application  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  body  also  refused,  so  that  both  Houses  of  Congress 
rejected  the  petition. 

That  application  for  the  repeal  of  that  good  law  against 
the  transmission  of  corrupt  and  obscene  literature  through 
the  mails  of  the  United  States,  only  demonstrates  what  you 
and  I  know,  that  the  same  infidelity  which  wipes  its  feet  on 
the  Bible  and  spits  in  the  face  of  God  is  the  worst  foe  of 
American  society.  I  do  not  wonder  that  when  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll  applied  to  the  Mayor  of  Toronto  for  permission  to 
lecture  in  that  city,  the  Mayor  of  Toronto  replied :  "  No, 
sir ;  you  may  have  no  God  in  the  United  States,  but  we  have 
one  up  here  in  Canada,  and  you  shall  not  stand  here  and 
blaspheme  Him." 

One  of  the  filthiest  creatures  who  had  been  sending  cor- 
rupt literature  through  the  mails  of  the  United  States  was 
arrested,  tried,  condemned  and  put  in  the  Penitentiary.  A 
petition  went  to  President  Hayes  asking  him  to  pardon  the 
culprit.  President  Hayes  looked  over  the  whole  case,  saw 
there  was  no  excuse  for  the  infamy,  that  there  were  no  miti- 
gating circumstances,  and  he  declined  to  pardon  the  mis- 
creant. Then  a  company  of  what  are  called  "  Liberalists" 
got  together  in  a  meeting  and  passed  a  resolution  of  "  deep- 
est sympathy' — these  were  the  two  words — "  deepest  sym- 
pathy" for  that  culprit,  and  the  resolution  of  "  deepest 
sympathy"  for  that  culprit  was  offered  by  Robert  G.  Inger- 
soll, and  the  resolution  was  passed  amid  great  acclamation 
of  the  people  present. 

Ah !  my  friends,  the  day  will  come  when  it  will  be  dem- 
onstrated— and  if  no  one  else  will  undertake  the  work,  I  will 
— that  while  Christianity  is  the  mother  of  all  the  virtues. 
Infidelity  is  the  foster-mother  of  all  the  vices  of  this  century, 
not  one  excepted.     Any  man  who  could  ask  for  the  repeal 


312  TRUMPET  PEA  IS. 

m 

of  that  good  law  against  the  sending  of  corrupt  literature 
throufTh  the  mails  of  the  United  States,  any  man  that  could 
do  that  is  the  enemy  of  every  decent  home  in  America,  and 
has  offered  an  insult  to  every  clean-minded  man  and  every 
pure-hearted  woman  in  Christendom. 

now   ARE  THE   FROGS   TO   BE   SLAIN? 

Now,  my  friends,  how  are  we  to  war  against  this  corrupt 
literature  ?  and  how  are  the  frogs  of  this  Egpytian  plague 
to  be  slain?  First  of  all,  by  the  prompt  and  inexorable  exe- 
cution of  the  law.  Let  all  good  postmasters  and  United 
States  district  attorneys,  and  detectives  and  reformers  con- 
cert in  their  action  to  stop  this  plague.  When  Sir  Rowland 
Hill  spent  his  life  in  trying  to  secure  cheap  postage  not  only 
for  England,  but  for  all  the  world,  and  to  open  the  blessing  of 
the  post-ofifice  to  all  honest  business  and  to  all  messages  of 
charity,  and  kindness,  and  affection,  for  all  healthful  inter- 
communication, he  did  not  mean  to  make  vice  easy  or  to  fill 
the  mail-bags  of  the  United  States  with  the  scabs  of  such  a 
leprosy. 

It  ought  not  to  be  in  the  power  of  every  bad  man  who 
can  raise  a  one-cent  stamp  for  a  circular,  or  a  two-cent 
stamp  for  a  letter,  to  blast  a  man  or  destroy  a  home.  I  was 
glad  when  I  saw  how  Jay  Gould  pounced  upon  the  culprit 
who  was  desecrating  our  magnificent  post-office  system. 
That  the  culprit  lived  on  Fifth  Avenue  instead  of  Elm 
Street  only  made  the  matter  more  outrageous.  The  New 
York  Post-Office  never  did  better  work  than  when  they  de- 
tailed fifty  postmen  to  watch  the  letter-boxes,  and  the  Po- 
lice Department  of  New  York  City  never  did  better  work 
than  when  they  detailed  fifty  detectives  to  make  summary 
arrests.  The  postal  service  of  this  country  must  be  clean, 
must  be  kept  clean,  and  we  must  all  understand  that  the 
swift  retributions  of  the  United  States  Government  hover 
over  every  violation  of  the  letter-box. 

There  are  thousands  of  men  and  women  in  this  country, 
some    for   personal    gain,  some    through    innate    depravity, 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  313 

« 

some  through  a  spirit  of  revenge,  who  wish  to  use  this  great 
avenue  of  convenience  and  intelHgence  for  purposes  revenge- 
ful, salacious,  and  diabolic.  Wake  up  the  law.  Wake  up  all 
its  penalties.  Let  every  court-room  on  this  subject  be  a 
Sinai  thunderous  and  aflame.  Let  the  convicted  offenders 
be  sent  for  the  full  term  to  Sing  Sing  or  Harrisburg,  and  hurl 
that  Governor  from  his  chair  who  shall  dare  to  pardon  before 
the  expiration  of  the  sentence. 

I  am  not  talking  about  what  cannot  be  done.  .  I  am  talk- 
ing now  about  what  is  being  done.  A  great  many  of  the 
printing-presses  that  gave  themselves  entirely  to  the  publi- 
cation of  salacious  literature  have  been  stopped,  or  have 
gone  into  business  less  obnoxious.  What  has  thrown  off, 
what  has  kept  off  the  rail-trains  of  this  country  for  some  time 
back  nearly  all  the  leprous  periodicals?  Those  of  us  who 
have  been  on  the  rail-trains  have  noticed  a  great  change. 
Why  have  nearly  all  those  indecent  periodicals  been  kept  off 
the  rail-trains?  Who  effected  it?  These  societies  for  the 
purification  of  railroad  literature  gave  warning  to  the  pub- 
lishers and  warning  to  railroad  companies,  and  warning  to 
conductors,  and  warning  to  newsboys,  to  keep  the  infernal 
stuff  off  the  trains. 

Cleveland  and  Rock  Island  and  Ann  Arbor  and  other 
cities  have  successfully  prohibited  the  most  of  that  litera- 
ture even  from  going  on  the  news-stands.  Terror  has 
seized  upon  the  publishers  and  the  dealers  in  impure  litera- 
ture from  the  fact  that  over  six  hundred  arrests  have  been 
made,  and  the  aggregate  time  for  which  the  convicted  have 
been  sentenced  to  the  prison  is  over  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  and  from  the  fact  that  over  one  million  three  hundred 
thousand  of  their  circulars  have  been  destroyed,  and  the 
business  is  not  as  profitable  as  it  used  to  be. 

How  have  so  many  of  the  news-stands  of  our  great  cities 
been  purified  ?  How  has  so  much  of  this  iniquity  been 
balked  ?  By  moral  suasion  ?  Oh  no.  You  might  as  well 
go  into  a  jungle  of  the  East  Lidies  and  pat  a  cobra  on  the 
neck,  and  with  profound  argument  try  to  persuade  it  that  it 
is  morally  wrong  to  bite  and  to  sting  and  to  poison  anything. 


314  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

• 
Tlic  only  answer  to  your  argument  would  be  an  uplifted 
head  and  a  hiss,  and  a  sharp,  recking  tooth  struck  into  your 
arteries.  The  only  argument  for  a  cobra  is  a  shot-gun,  and 
the  only  argument  for  these  dealers  in  impure  literature  is 
the  clutch  of  the  police  and  bean-soup  in  a  penitentiary. 
The  law !  The  law  !  I  invoke  the  law  to  consummate  the 
work  so  grandly  begun  ! 

HEALTHFUL   LITERATURE. 

Another  way  in  which  we  are  to  drive  back  this  plague 
of  Egyptian  frogs  is  by  filling  the  minds  of  our  boys  and 
girls  with  a  healthful  literature. 

A  good  book — who  can  exaggerate  its  power  ?  Benjamin 
Franklin  said  that  his  reading  of  Cotton  Mather's  "  Essays 
To  Do  Good,"  in  childhood  gave  him  holy  aspirations  for  all 
the  rest  of  his  life. 

A  clergyman,  many  years  ago,  passing  to  the  Far  West, 
stopped  at  a  hotel.  He  saw  a  woman  copying  something 
from  Doddridge's  "  Rise  and  Progress."  It  seemed  that 
she  had  borrowed  the  book,  and  there  were  some  things  she 
wanted  especially  to  remember.  The  clergyman  had  in  his 
satchel  a  copy  of  Doddridge's  "  Rise  and  Progress,"  and  so 
he  made  her  a  present  of  it.  Thirty  years  passed  on.  The 
clergyman  came  that  way  and  he  asked  where  the  woman 
was,  whom  he  had  seen  long  ago.  They  said  :  "  She  lives 
yonder  in  that  beautiful  house."  He  went  there  and  said 
to  her:  "  Do  you  remember  me?"  She  said:  "  No,  I  do 
not."  He  said  :  "  Do  you  remember  a  man  gave  you  Dodd- 
ridge's '  Rise  and  Progress'  thirty  years  ago?"  "O  yes;  I 
remember.  That  book  saved  my  soul.  I  loaned  the  book  to 
all  my  neighbors,  and  they  read  it  and  they  were  converted 
to  God,  and  we  had  a  revival  of  religion  which  swept 
through  the  whole  community.  We  built  a  church  and 
called  a  pastor.  You  see  that  spire  yonder,  don't  you  ? 
That  church  was  built  as  the  result  of  that  book  you  gave 
me  thirty  years  ago." 

O  the  power  of  a  good  book  I     But,  alas!  for  the  influ- 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  31$ 

ence  of  a  bad  book.  Jolui  Angcll  James,  than  whom  England 
never  had  a  hoher  minister,  stood  in  his  pulpit  at  Birming- 
ham and  said  :  "  Twenty-five  years  ago  a  lad  loaned  to  me 
an  infamous  book.  He  would  loan  it  only  fifteen  minutes, 
and  then  I  had  to  give  it  back ;  but  that  book  has  haunted 
me  like  a  spectre  ever  since.  I  have  in  agony  of  soul,  on  my 
knees  before  God,  prayed  that  He  would  obliterate  from  my 
soul  the  memory  of  it ;  but  I  shall  carry  the  damage  of  it 
until  the  day  of  my  death."  The  assassin  of  Sir  William 
Russell  declared  that  he  got  the  inspiration  for  his  crime  by 
reading  what  was  then  a  new  and  popular  novel,  "  Jack 
Sheppard."  "  Homer's  Iliad  "  made  Alexander  the  War- 
rior. Alexander  said  so.  The  story  of  Alexander  made 
Julius  Caesar  and  Charles  XH.  both  men  of  blood. 

Have  you  in  your  pocket  or  in  your  trunk  or  in  your 
desk  at  business  a  bad  book,  a  bad  picture,  a  bad  pamphlet  ? 
In  God's  name,  I  warn  you  to  destroy  it.  There  are  good 
books,  good  histories,  good  biographies,  good  works  of  fic- 
tion, good  books  of  all  styles  with  which  we  are  to  fill  the 
minds  of  the  young,  so  that  there  will  be  no  more  room  for 
the  useless  and  the  vicious  than  there  is  room  for  chaff  in  a 
bushel  measure  which  is  already  filled  with  Michigan  wheat. 

Against  every  bad  pamphlet  send  a  good  pamphlet ; 
against  every  unclean  picture  send  an  innocent  picture; 
against  every  scurrilous  song  send  a  Christian  song ;  against 
every  bad  book  send  a  good  book ;  and  then  it  will  be  as  it 
was  in  ancient  Toledo,  where  the  Toletum  missals  were  kept 
by  the  saints  in  six  churches,  and  the  sacrilegious  Romans 
demanded  that  those  missals  be  destroyed,  and  that  the 
Roman  missals  be  substituted  ;  and  the  war  came  on,  and  I 
am  glad  to  say  that,  the  whole  matter  having  been  referred 
to  champions,  the  champion  of  the  Toletum  missals  with 
one  blow  brought  down  the  champion  of  the  Roman  missals. 

So  it  will  be  in  our  day.  The  good  literature,  the  Chris- 
tian literature,  in  its  championship  for  God  and  the  truth, 
will  bring  down  the  evil  literature  in  its  championship  for 
the  devil.  I  feel  tingling  to  the  tips  of  my  fingers  and 
through  all  the  nerves  of  my  body,  and  all  rhe  depths  of  my 


3l6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

soul,  the  certainty  of  our  triumph.  Cheer  up,  O  men  and 
women  who  arc  toihng  for  the  purification  of  society  !  Toil 
with  your  faces  in  the  sunlight.  "If  God  be  for  us,  who, 
ivho  can  be  against  us  ?" 

Thus  one  way  in  which  we  shall  fight  back  this  corrupt 
literature  and  kill  the  frogs  of  Egypt  is  by  rolling  over  them 
the  Christian  printing-press,  which  shall  give  plenty  of  health- 
ful reading  to  all  adults. 

We  see  so  many  books  that  we  do  not  understand  what 
a  book  is.  Stand  it  on  end.  Measure  it,  the  height  of  it, 
the  depth  of  it,  the  length  of  it,  the  breadth  of  it.  You  can- 
not do  it.  Examine  the  paper  and  estimate  the  progress 
made  from  the  time  of  the  impressions  on  clay,  and  then  on 
to  the  bark  of  trees,  and  from  the  bark  of  trees  to  papyrus, 
and  from  papyrus  to  the  hide  of  wild  beasts,  and  from  the 
hide  of  wild  beasts  on  down  until  the  miracles  of  our  modern 
paper  manufactories,  and  then  see  the  paper,  white  and  pure 
as  an  infant's  soul  waiting  for  God's  inscription.  A  book ! 
Examine  the  type  of  it.  Examine  the  printing  of  it  and  see 
the  progress  from  the  time  when  Solon's  laws  were  written 
on  oak  planks  and  Hesiod's  poems  were  written  on  tables  of 
lead,  and  the  Sinaitic  commands  were  written  on  tables  of 
stone,  on  down  to  Hoe's  perfecting  printing-press.  It  took  all 
the  universities  of  the  past,  all  the  martyr  fires,  all  the  civili- 
zations, all  the  battles,  all  the  victories,  all  the  defeats,  all  the 
glooms,  all  the  brightnesses,  all  the  centuries,  to  make  it  pos- 
sible. A  book  !  It  is  the  chorus  of  the  ages — it  is  the  draw- 
ing-room in  which  kings  and  queens  and  orators  and  poets 
and  historians  and  philosophers  come  out  to  greet  you.  If 
I  worshipped  anything  on  earth  I  would  worship  that.  If  I 
burned  incense  to  any  idol,  I  would  build  an  altar  to  that. 
Thank  God  for  good  books,  healthful  books,  inspiring  books. 
Christian  books,  books  of  men,  books  of  women,  Book  of 
God.  It  is  with  these  good  books  that  we  are  to  overcome 
corrupt  literature.     Upon  the  frogs  swoop  with  these  eagles. 

I  depend  much  for  the  overthrow  of  iniquitous  literature 
upon  the  mortality  of  books.  Even  good  books  have  a  hard 
struggle  to  live.      I'oljbius  wrote  forty  books;  only  five  of 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  317 

them  left.  Thirty  books  of  Tacitus  have  perished.  Twenty 
books  of  PHny  have  perished,  Livy  wrote  one  hundred  and 
forty  books:  only  thirty-five  of  them  remain.  Eschylus 
wrote  one  hundred  dramas  ;  only  seven  remain.  Euripides 
wrote  over  a  hundred;  only  nineteen  remain,  Varro  wrote 
the  biographies  of  over  seven  hundred  great  Romans,  All 
that  wealth  of  biography  has  perished.  If  good  and  val- 
uable books  have  such  a  struggle  to  live,  what  must  be  the 
fate  of  those  that  are  diseased  and  corrupt  and  blasted  at 
the  very  start  ?  They  will  die  as  the  frogs  when  the  Lord 
turned  back  the  plague.  The  work  of  Christianization  will 
go  on  until  there  will  be  nothing  left  but  good  books,  and 
they  will  take  the  supremacy  of  the  world.  May  you  and  I 
live  to  see  the  illustrious  day  ! 

GOOD   AND   BAD   RESULTS. 

If  I  have  placed  before  you,  fathers  and  mothers,  young 
ihen  and  young  women,  tests  by  which  you  may  know  what 
a  good  newspaper  is  and  what  a  bad  newspaper,  what  good 
books,  and  what  bad  books,  I  have  done  a  work  that  I 
shall  not  be  ashamed  of  on  that  day  when  God  shall  try 
every  man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is.  Encourage  good  litera- 
ture. Do  not  begrudge  the  three  or  five  pennies  you  pay 
for  your  morning  newspaper.  In  every  possible  way,  en- 
courage the  literature  of  the  world  so  far  as  it  is  pure ;  so 
far  as  it  is  bad,  denounce  it.  Do  not  purchase  bad  books 
even  out  of  curiosity.  You  remember  that  one  column  of  a 
good  newspaper  may  save  your  soul,  and  that  one  paragraph 
of  a  bad  newspaper  may  damn  it. 

Crowd  your  minds  with  good  books,  and  there  will  be  no 
room  for  the  bad.  When  Thomas  Chalmers  was  riding  be- 
side a  stage-driver  and  the  horses  were  going  beautifully, 
the  stage-driver  drew  his  long  lash  and  struck  the  ear  of  the 
leader.  It  seemed  to  Thomas  Chalmers  a  great  cruelty,  and 
he  said,  "  Why  did  you  strike  that  horse  ;  he  is  going  splen- 
didly." "Ah!"  said  the  stage-driver,  "do  you  see  that 
frightful  object  along  the  road  ?     I  never  in  the  world  would 


3l8  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

have  "-ot  that  horse  along  there  if  I  hadn't  given  him  some- 
thin"-  else  to  think  of !"  Thomas  Chalmers  went  home  and 
wrote  his  immortal  sermon,  "  The  Expulsive  Power  of  a 
New  Affection." 


WHAT  BOOKS   AND   NEWSPAPERS  SHALL  WE   READ  ? 

Shall  we  make  our  minds  the  receptacle  of  everything 
that  bad  authors  have  a  mind  to  write?  Shall  we  make  no 
distinction  between  the  tree  of  life  and  the  tree  of  death  ? 
Shall  we  stoop  down  and  drink  out  of  the  trough  which 
the  wickedness  of  men  has  filled  with  pollution  and  shame? 
Shall  we  chase  the  fantastic  will-o'-the-wisps  across  the 
swamp,  and  mire  in  impurity  when  we  may  walk  in  the 
blooming  gardens  of  God?  You  and  I  must  decide  for  our 
present  welfare  and  our  everlasting  happiness  what  we  shall 
read,  and  we  cannot  afford  to  make  a  mistake.  God  help 
me  this  morning,  and  help  you,  that  I  may  present  the  right 
theory,  and  that  we  may  all  be  enabled  to  adopt  it. 

Standing  as  we  do  chin  deep  in  the  fictitious  literature 
of  the  day,  the  question  is  asked  us,  What  novels  shall  we 
read,  if  we  read  any  ?  Shall  we  read  any  ?  What  advice 
shall  we  give  to  young  people  in  regard  to  this  matter? 

FICTITIOUS   LITERATURE. 

There  are  good,  pure,  honest.  Christian  novels — those 
that  elevate  the  heart  and  purify  the  life.  A  novel  is  his- 
tory and  poetry  combined — the  history  of  things  around 
us,  with  the  licenses  and  the  assumed  names  of  poetry. 
The  world  \s\\\  never  be  able  to  pay  the  debt  of  obligation  it 
owes  to  such  fictitious  writers  as  Hawthorne,  and  M'Kenzie, 
and  Landor,  and  Hunt,  and  Arthur,  and  Marion  Harland, 
and  others  whose  names  easily  occur  to  you.  No  one  has 
ever  better  set  forth  the  follies  of  high  life  than  did  Miss 
Edgeworth.  No  one  has  ever  more  faithfully  embalmed  the 
memories  of  the  past  than  has  Walter  Scott.  Cooper's  nov- 
els are  healthy  with  the  breath  of  seaweed  and  the  air  of  the 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  319 

American  forest.  Charles  Kingsley  has  done  wonders  in 
curing  the  morbidity  of  the  world,  and  showing  the  poetry 
of  strong  muscle  and  good  health  and  fresh  air.  Thackeray 
has  brought  the  world  under  obligation  by  his  caricature  of 
the  pretenders  to  gentility  and  high  blood.  Charles  Dickens 
has  built  his  monument  in  his  own  books,  which  are  an  ever- 
lasting plea  for  the  poor  and  an  anathema  against  injustice. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  this  style  of  books  rightly  read 
and  read  in  right  proportion  with  other  books,  will  have  an 
elevating  and  purifying  and  ennobling  and  enlarging  influ- 
ence ;  but  I  have  to  deplore,  as  you  will  deplore,  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  pernicious  tide  of  novels  setting  in  in  this 
country.  It  is  coming  in  like  a  freshet  overflowing  all  the 
banks  of  decency  and  common-sense.  Some  of  the  most 
reputable  publishing  houses  of  the  country  are  printing 
them.  Some  of  the  religious  papers  are  commending  them. 
You  find  them  in  the  school-girl's  desk,  in  the  young  man's 
trunk,  in  the  steamboat  cabin,  on  the  table  of  the  reception- 
room. 

You  see  a  light  in  your  child's  room  late  at  night.  You 
go  in  and  say,  "  What  are  you  doing  ?"  The  boy  says,  "  I 
am  reading."  You  say,  "  What  are  you  reading  ?"  "  Read- 
ing a  book."  "  Well,  what  is  the  book?"  You  take  hold 
of  the  book,  and  you  see  it  is  a  bad  book,  and  you  say 
"Where  did  you  get  this  book?"  "Oh,"  he  says,  "I  bor- 
rowed it !"  There  is  always  some  one  glad  to  loan  a  bad 
book  to  your  boy.  Pernicious  literature  everywhere !  I 
charge  upon  it  the  destruction  of  tens  of  thousands  of  im- 
mortal souls,  and  I  bid  you  wake  up  to  this  tremendous  evil. 

I  am  going  to  gather  all  the  books  together,  novels  good 
and  bad,  travels  true  and  false,  histories  faithful  and  inac- 
curate, legends  beautiful  and  monstrous — all  catalogues,  all 
chronicles,  all  family,  city,  state,  and  national  libraries,  and 
I  will  pile  them  up  in  one  great  pyramid  of  literature,  and 
bring  to  bear  upon  it  certain  grand,  glorious,  unmistakable, 
and  infallible  Christian  texts,  so  that  instead  of  going  away 
saying,  I  recommend  this,  or  denounce  that,  every  man  and 


320  TKL'MrET  PEALS. 

every  woman  with  an  awakened  conscience  will  be  able  to 
decide  for  himself  and  for  herself. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  I  counsel  you  to  avoid  all  those 
books  which  give  false  portraiture  of  Jmman  life.  Life  is 
neitiier  a  tragedy  nor  a  farce,  men  are  not  all  knaves  or  he- 
rocs,  women  are  neither  angels  nor  furies,  and  yet  much  of 
the  literature  of  the  day  would  seem  to  give  you  the  idea 
that  instead  of  life  being  an  earnest,  practical  thing,  it  is  a 
fantastic  and  extravagant  thing. 

How  are  that  young  man  and  that  young  woman  pre- 
pared for  the  duties  of  the  day  who  by  reading  romances 
last  night  waded  through  stories  of  magnificent  knavery  and 
wickedness?  An  indiscriminate  reader  of  novels  is  inane,  use- 
less, and  a  nuisance,  unfit  for  store,  bank,  office,  factory, 
street,  home — anywhere.  A  woman  who  is  an  indiscriminate 
reader  of  novels  is  unfitted  for  her  duty  as  wife,  mother, 
sister,  daughter.  There  she  is  at  midnight,  bending  over  the 
romance.  Hair  dishevelled,  countenance  vacant,  hand  trem- 
ulous, cheek  pale,  bursting  into  tears  at  the  story  of  an  un- 
fortunate lover ! 

There  she  is,  by  day,  when  she  ought  to  be  busy,  gazing 
for  one  long  hour  at — nothing  !  Biting  her  finger-nails  into 
the  quick !  The  carpets  that  were  plain  before  on  the  floor 
of  the  home,  will  be  plainer,  now  that  in  the  romance  she 
has  been  walking  through  tessellated  halls  of  castles,  beside 
plumed  princesses,  or  lounging  in  the  arbor  with  polished 
desperado.  Oh,  these  indiscriminate  readers  of  fiction,  they 
are  unfitted  for  this  life,  which  .is  a  tremendous  discipline. 
They  are  unfitted  for  the  furnaces  of  trial  through  which 
they  have  to  pass.  They  are  unfitted  for  this  life,  where  all 
we  gain  is  achieved  by  hard,  long-continued,  exhaustive  and 
tremendous  work ! 

Again  :  I  counsel  you  to  avoid  all  those  books  which, 
while  they  have  good  in  them,  have  also  a  large  admixture  of 
evil.  What  has  been  your  history  in  the  reading  of  books 
which  were  partly  good  and  parti)'  bad?  Which  stuck  the 
longest,  the  good  or  the  batP  The  bad.  Most  human  in- 
tellects are  so  fashioned  that  they  allow  the  small  particles 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  3^1 

of  good  like  a  sieve  to  fall  through,  and  hold  the  great  cin- 
ders. There  is  here  and  there  an  intellect,  which,  like  a  load- 
stone plunged  amid  steel  and  brass  filings,  gathers  up  the 
steel  and  repels  the  brass  filings ;  but  it  is  the  exception. 

The  best  man  that  ever  lived  cannot  afford  to  read  a  bad 
book,  unless  he  read  it  for  professional  purposes,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  the  world  better,  just  as  a  doctor  may  go 
through  a  small-pox  hospital,  or  through  a  lazaretto  studying 
disease  that  he  may  go  forth  and  benefit  the  world  with  his 
theories  in  regard  to  health  and  in  regard  to  sickness.  But 
you  go  into  a  bad  book  to  get  the  good  out  of  it  and  you 
will  make  a  terrible  mistake.  You  will  plunge  through  a 
hedge  of  burrs  to  get  one  blackberry,  and  you  will  get  more 
burrs  than  blackberries. 

You  say  the  evil  in  the  book  is  so  insignificant  it  will  not 
amount  to  anything.  I  tell  you  that  the  scratch  of  a  pin 
has  sometimes  produced  lock-jaw.  You  go  out  of  curiosity 
prying  into  a  bad  book,  and  you  are  making  as  dangerous  an 
experiment  as  the  man  who  should  take  a  lighted  torch  into 
a  gunpowder  mill  to  find  out  whether  really  there  is  any 
danger  of  its  blowing  up.  He  will  find  out,  but  the  experi- 
ment will  never  be  of  any  advantage  to  anybody. 

Years  ago  there  was  on  exhibition  in  New  York  ablack 
leopard,  a  very  dangerous  animal,  but  very  beautiful.  A 
gentleman  stood  looking  through  the  bars  of  the  cage  at  the 
black  leopard.  It  seemed  so  mild,  so  quiet,  so  beautiful,  he 
felt  as  if  he  would  like  to  stroke  the  sleek  hide.  He  stood  a 
little  while  considering  whether  it  would  be  safe.  Every- 
thing seemed  safe  and  he  put  his  hand  through  the  bars  of 
the  cage  and  stroked  the  sleek  and  beautiful  hide  of  the  black 
leopard  ;  but  no  sooner  had  he  touched  it  than  it  sprang 
upon  him,  and  he  pulled  forth  his  arm  and  his  hand  mauled 
and  bleeding,  and  ready  for  amputation.  Look  out  how  you 
toy  with  iniquity.  It  may  be  very  beautiful,  very  attractive, 
and  seem  very  placid  ;  but  you  attempt  to  stroke  it,  and  you 
may  pull  forth  your  soul  torn  and  bleeding  under  the  clutch 
of  the  black  leopard. 

You  say,  ''How  are  we  to  find  oiit  whdX  books  are  good  or 


;J22  TRLMPET   I'EALS. 

bad  without  reading  them  ?"  Every  bad  book  has  some- 
thing suspicious  about  it.  There  is  something  suspicious  in 
the  index  or  in  the  engraving.  You  take  any  book  to  any 
intelh'gent  man,  and  in  five  minutes  by  shuffling  the  leaves 
and  looking  at  the  index  he  can  tell  }-ou  whether  it  is  a  good 
book  or  a  bad  one,  and  out  of  a  thousand  attempts  he  will 
not  make  one  mistake.  This  reptile  of  bad  literature  carries 
a  warning  rattle. 

BOOKS  THAT  CORRUPT  THE   IMAGINATION. 

I  command  you  to  avoid  all  books  that  arouse  the  base 
passions.  I  do  not  refer  now  to  the  bad  book  the  villain  has 
under  his  arm,  standing  at  the  street  corner  waiting  for  the 
school  to  come  out,  then  looking  up  and  down  the  street, 
and  finding  no  police  near  by,  offers  the  book  to  your  boy 
on  his  way  home.  I  do  not  refer  to  that,  but  I  refer  to  lit- 
erature which  evades  the  law%  and  is  written  in  polished 
style,  and  with  acute  plot  sounds  the  tocsin  that  arouses  all 
the  baser  passions  of  the  soul. 

Many  years  ago,  there  was  a  lady  who  came  forth  as  an 
authoress  under  the  assumed  name  of  George  Sand.  She 
smoked  cigars.  She  dressed  like  a  gentleman.  She  wrote 
in  style  ardent  and  eloquent,  mighty  in  its  gloom,  terrible  in 
its  unchastity,  vivid  in  its  portraiture,  damnable  in  its  influ- 
ence, putting  forth  an  evil  which  has  never  relaxed,  but  has 
hundreds  of  copyists.  So  much  worse  now  are  many  of 
these  French  books  coming  to  America  than  anything 
George  Sand  ever  wrote  that  if  she  were  alive  now  she 
might  be  thought  almost  a  reformer. 

Right  under  the  nostrils  of  your  great  cities  there  is  a 
reeking,  unwashed  literature  enough  to  poison  all  the  foun- 
tains of  public  virtue  and  smite  your  sons  and  daughters  as 
with  the  wing  of  a  destroying  angel,  and  it  is  high  time  that 
ministers  of  religion  should  blow  the  trumpet  and  rally  the 
troops  of  righteousness,  all  armed  to  the  teeth  in  this  battle 
against  a  corrupt  literature. 

Here  is  a  man  who  jjeginsto  read  French  novels.  "The/ 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  323 

are  so  charming,"  he  says,  "  I  will  go  out  and  see  for  myself 
whether  all  these  things  are  so."  He  opens  the  gate  of  a  sin- 
ful life.  He  goes  in.  A  sinful  sprite  meets  him  with  her 
wand.  She  waves  her  wand  and  it  is  all  enchantment.  Why, 
it  seems  as  if  the  angels  of  God  had  poured  out  vials  of  per- 
fume in  the  atmosphere.  As  he  walks  on  he  finds  the  hills 
becoming  more  radiant  with  foliage,  and  the  ravines  more 
resonant  with  the  falling  water.  Oh  what  a  charming  land- 
scape he  sees  ! 

But  that  sinful  sprite  with  her  wand  meets  him  again  ; 
but  now  she  reverses  the  wand  and  all  the  enchantment  is 
gone.  The  cup  is  full  of  poison.  The  fruit  turns  to  ashes. 
All  the  leaves  of  the  bower  are  forked  tongues  of  hissing 
serpents.  The  flowing  fountains  fall  back  in  a  dead  pool, 
stenchful  with  corruption.  The  luring  songs  become  curses 
and  screams  of  demoniac  laughter.  Lost  spirits  gather 
about  him,  and  feel  for  his  heart,  and  beckon  him  on  with 
"  Hail  brother  !  Hail,  blasted  spirit,  hail !"  He  tries  to  get 
out.  He  comes  to  the  front  door  where  he  entered  and 
tries  to  push  it  back,  but  the  door  turns  against  him  ;  and  in 
the  jar  of  that  shutting  door  he  hears  these  words  :  "  This 
night  is  Belshazzar  the  King  of  the  Chaldeans  slain."  Sin 
may  open  bright  as  the  morning ;  it  closes  dark  as  the  night. 

BOOKS  WHICH  ARE  APOLOGETIC  FOR  CRIME. 

It  is  a  deplorable  fact  that  some  of  the  richest  book- 
bindery  and  the  finest  rhetoric  are  brought  into  the  service 
of  sin.  Now,  sin  is  loathsome  anyhow.  It  is  born  in 
shame  and  it  dies  howling  in  the  darkness.  In  this  world  it 
is  scourged  with  a  whip  of  scorpions,  and  afterward  it  is  pur- 
sued by  God's  thunders  of  wrath  across  a  boundless  desert 
of  ruin  and  woe. 

All  those  books  that  represent  sin  as  happy  and  con- 
gratulated, and  sin  as  finally  successful,  are  an  insult  to  God 
and  a  blasting  influence  to  the  human  race.  Sin  is  never 
happy.  "  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the  wicked." 
Sin  is  never  finally  successful.     "  The  way  of  the  wicked  He 


324  TKUMPEr  PEALS. 

turncth  upside  down."  Those  books  that  represent  the 
opposite  of  this,  that  sin  is  happy,  that  sin  is  finally  success- 
ful, are  slanders  on  the  human  race  and  an  outrai^e  on  God, 
who  made  the  human  race.  If  you  present  carnality,  do  not 
present  it  as  looking  from  behind  embroidered  curtains,  or 
through  the  lattice  of  a  royal  seraglio,  but  as  writhing  in  the 
agonies  of  a  city  hospital. 

Cursed  of  God  and  man  be  all  those  books  which  would 
try  to  make  impurity  decent  and  iniquity  right  and  hypocrisy 
honorable!  Cursed  be  all  those  books  swarming  with  liber- 
tines and  desperadoes,  filling  the  minds  of  young  people 
with  sin  and  whirling  them  into  iniquity!  Ye  authors  who 
write  them,  ye  publishers  who  print  them,  ye  booksellers 
who  sell  them,  you  will  be  cut  to  pieces  after  a  while,  if  not 
with  the  indignation  of  the  community,  then  with  the  wrath 
of  that  God  who  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty.  A 
mighty  responsibility  that  man  undertakes  who  has  anything 
to  do  with  iniquitous  literature. 

INSANITY   INDUCED. 

The  hour  strikes  inidnigJit.  She  is  bending  over  the 
depraved  romance.  The  cheeks  are  flushed  with  the  color 
that  soon  dies  out.  Hot  tears  fall.  Breath  is  quick  and 
irregular.  The  hand  trembles  as  though  a  guardian  angel 
were  trying  to  shake  the  book  out  of  her  grasp.  The  sweat 
on  the  brow  is  the  spray  dashed  up  from  the  river  of  death. 
She  laughs;  the  sound  drops  dead.  Four  o'clock  in  the 
morning!  The  day  will  soon  look  upon  her  as  thougli  she 
were  a  detained  spectre  of  the  night.  Soon  in  the  mad- 
house, she  will  mistake  the  ringlets  for  coiling  serpents,  and 
she  will  thrust  her  white  hand  through  the  bars,  and  smite 
her  head,  and  push  it  as  though  to  shove  the  scalp  from  the 
skull,  crying,  ";//;'  brain!  i)iy  bnrin/"     Mad!  Mad! 

Oh,  stand  off  from  such  an  accursed  literature!  Why  go 
sounding  among  the  reefs  and  the  warning  buoys  of  such  a 
dangerous  coast  when  there  is  a  vast  ocean  where  you  may 
voyage  all  sail  set  ? 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  325 

Why  are  fifty  per  cent  of  the  criminals  in  the  jails  and 
penitentiaries  of  the  United  States  to-day  under  twenty-one 
years  of  age?  Many  of  them  under  seventeen,  under  six- 
teen, under  fifteen,  under  fourteen,  under  thirteen.  Walk 
along  one  of  tJie  corridors  of  the  Tombs  prison  in  New  York 
and  look  for  yourselves.  Bad  books,  bad  newspapers,  be- 
witched them  as  soon  as  they  got  out  of  the  cradle.  Beware 
of  all  those  stories  which  end  wrong.  Beware  of  all  those 
books  which  make  the  road  that  ends  in  perdition  seem  to 
end  in  Paradise.  Do  not  glorify  the  dirk  and  the  pistol. 
Do  not  call  the  desperado  brave  or  the  libertine  gallant. 
Teach  our  young  people  that  if  they  go  down  into  the 
swamps  and  marshes  to  watch  the  jack-o'-lanterns  dance  on 
the  decay  and  rottenness,  they  will  catch  the  malaria  and 
death. 

APOLOGIES. 

"O!"  says  some  one,  "I  am  a  business  man,  and  I  have 
no  time  to  examine  what  my  children  read.  I  have  no  time 
to  inspect  the  books  that  come  into  my  household."  If 
your  children  were  threatened  with  typhoid  fever,  would 
you  have  time  to  go  for  the  doctor?  Would  you  have  time 
to  watch  the  progress  of  the  disease?  Would  you  have 
time  for  the  funeral?  In  the  presence  of  my  God  I  warn 
you  of  the  fact  that  your  children  are  threatened  with  moral 
and  spiritual  typhoid,  and  that  unless  the  thing  be  stopped, 
it  will  be  to  them  funeral  of  body,  funeral  of  mind,  funeral 
of  soul.     Three  funerals  in  one  day. 

My  word  is  to  this  vast  multitude  of  young  people:  Do 
not  touch,  do  not  borrow,  do  not  buy  a  corrupt  book  or  a 
corrupt  picture.  A  book  will  decide  a  man's  destiny  for 
good  or  for  evil. 

INFIDEL   BOOKS. 

Who  can  calculate  the  soul-havoc  of  a  Rousseau,  going 
on  with  a  very  enthusiasm  of  iniquity,  with  fiery  imagination 


326  TRU^rPEr  peals. 

seizing  upon  all  the  impulsive  natures  of  his  day,  or  David 
Hume,  who  employed  his  life  as  a  spider  employs  its  sum- 
mer, in  spinning  out  silken  webs  to  trap  the  unwary,  or  Vol- 
taire, the  most  learned  man  of  his  day,  marshalling  a  great 
host  of  sceptics,  and  leading  them  out  in  the  dark  land  of 
infidelity,  or  Gibbon,  who  showed  an  uncontrollable  grudge 
against  religion  in  his  history  of  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
periods  of  the  world's  existence — the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire — a  book  in  which,  with  all  the  splendors  of 
his  genius,  he  magnified  the  errors  of  Christian  disciples, 
while  with  a  sparseness  of  notice  that  never  can  be  forgiven 
he  treated  of  the  Christian  heroes  of  whom  the  world  was  not 
worthy  ? 

I  had  one  book  in  my  library  of  which  I  have  never 
thought  with  any  comfort.  It  was  an  infidel  book,  which  I 
bought  for  the  purpose  of  finding  out  the  arguments  against 
Christianity.  A  gentleman  in  my  library  one  day  said,  "Can 
I  borrow  that  book?"  I  said,  "Certainly."  That  book 
came  back  with  some  passages  marked  as  having  especially 
impressed  him,  and  when  I  heard  that  he  had  gone  down  in 
a  shipwreck  off  Cape  Hatteras  I  asked  myself  the  question, 
"  I  wonder  if  anything  he  saw  in  that  book  which  he  bor- 
rowed from  me  could  have  affected  his  eternal  destiny  ?" 

I  remember  one  infidel  book  in  the  possession  of  my  student 
companion.  He  said,  "  De  Witt,  would  you  like  to  read  that 
book  ?"  "  Well,"  said  I,  "  I  would  like  to  look  at  it."  I  read 
it  a  little  while.  I  said  to  him,  "  I  dare  not  read  that  book; 
you  had  better  destroy  it ;  I  give  you  my  advice,  you  had 
better  destroy  it.  I  dare  not  read  that  book.  I  have  read 
enough  of  it."  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  haven't  you  a  stronger  mind 
than  that  ?  Can't  you  read  a  book  you  don't  exactly  believe, 
and  not  be  affected  by  it  ?"  I  said,  "  You  had  better  destroy 
it."     He  kept  it. 

He  read  it.  He  poured  over  it.  He  read  it  and  re-read 
it.  He  read  it  until  he  gave  up  his  Bible.  He  read  it  until 
he  gave  up  his  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  God.  He  read  it 
until  he  gave  up  his  good  morals.  He  read  it  until  body, 
mind,  and  soul  were  ruined — the  body  smitten  with  disease, 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  327 

the  mind  deranged — and  he  went  into  the  insane  asylum, 
and  the  story  of  that  book,  that  one  infidel  book,  will  never 
be  told  in  this  world. 

/  read  too  much  of  it.  I  read  about  fifteen  or  twenty 
pages  of  it.  I  wish  I  had  never  read  it.  It  never  did  me 
any  good  ;  it  did  me  harm.  I  have  often  struggled  with 
what  I  read  in  that  book.  I  rejected  it,  I  denounced  it,  I 
cast  it  out  with  infinite  scorn,  I  hated  it,  yet  sometimes  it 
has  troubled  me.  You  cannot  afford  to  read  a  bad  book, 
young  man,  you  cannot  afford  it. 

PERNICIOUS   PICTORIALS 

Are  also  doing  a  tremendous  work  of  death.  You  find  these 
death-warrants  on  all  the  streets.  For  a  good,  healthful 
picture  we  have  great  admiration.  .What  a  good  author 
may  take  four  hundred  pages  to  present,  a  good  engraver 
could  present  on  the  half  side  of  a  pictorial.  Costly  paint- 
ings are  the  aristocracy  of  art ;  engraving  is  the  democracy 
of  art.  The  best  part  of  a  picture  that  cost  $10,000  you  may 
buy  for  ten  cents.  I  say  the  best  part.  So  we  ought  to  re- 
joice in  the  multiplication  of  pictures.  It  is  the  intense,  it 
is  the  quick  way  of  presenting  a  truth. 

A  man  never  gets  over  his  love  for  pictures.  The  little 
child  is  entranced  with  them  ;  we  all  are  entranced  with 
them.  If  a  book  be  presented  to  us,  we  first  look  at  the  pic- 
tures. Multiply  them.  After  the  children  are  gathered  after 
the  evening  repast,  put  before  them  the  pictures.  Nail  them 
to  the  wall  of  the  nursery — the  pictures.  Put  them  on  the 
couch  of  the  invalid.  Strew  them  all  through  the  railroad 
cars  and  steamboat  cabins  to  refresh  the  travellers.  Gather 
pictures  in  your  albums  and  portfolios.  Bless  God  for  pic- 
tures and  may  they  multiply  all  over  the  earth  these  mes- 
sengers of  knowledge  and  of  mercy. 

But  the  unclean  pictorials  are  doing  a  work  vast  for  death 
and  perdition.  Many  a  young  man  for  ten  cents  buys  his 
everlasting  undoing.  It  poisons  his  soul,  his  soul  may  poi- 
son ten  other  souls,  they  may  poison  hundreds,  the  hundreds 


32S  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

thousands,  the  thousands  millions.  It  will  take  the  measur- 
ing line  of  eternity  to  tell  how  far  out  has  gone  the  influence 
of  that  one  unclean  pictorial.  He  may  unroll  it  amid  the 
roariufj^  mirth  of  his  comrades;  but  if  they  could  see  the  re- 
sult oil  the  }'oung  man's  heart  and  life,  instead  (jf  laughing 
they  would  weep. 

The  ijmcti  of  (iiath  holds  a  baiuiuct  every  night,  and  these 
unclean  [jictorials  are  the  i)rinted  invitations  to  the  guests. 
Alas!  that  the  fair  brow  of  American  art  should  be  blotched 
with  this  plague-spot,  aiul  that  philanthr<)i)ists,  worried  about 
le.sser  evils,  shoukl  give  so  little  time  to  this  calamity. 
Young  men,  have  nothing  to  do  with  these  pictures.  Do 
not  take  the  moral  strychnine  into  your  soul.  Do  not  take 
up  this  nest  of  coiling  adders  and  put  it  in  your  pocket.  Do 
not  patronize  the  news-stand  that  sells  them. 

A  man  is  no  better  than  the  picture  he  loves  to  look  at.  I 
will  give  you  $1000  reward  for  any  young  man  who  remains 
pure,  and  yet  has  the  regular  habit  of  buying  unclean  pic- 
torials— $1000  reward  for  one  sjiecimen.  Ah,  my  friends, 
Satan  sometimes  failing  to  get  a  soul  by  inducing  him  to 
read  a  bad  book  captures  him  by  getting  him  to  look  at  an 
impure  periodical !  When  Satan  goes  fishing  he  does  not 
care  whether  it  is  a  long  line  or  a  short  line,  if  he  only  hauls 
his  victim  in. 


EXAMINE  YOUR   LIBRARIES. 

Antl  after  you  have  got  through  your  libraries,  examine 
the  stand  where  the  pictorials  and  newspapers  arc,  anci  if 
you  find  anything  there  that  cannot  stantl  the  test  of  the 
judgment  day,  do  not  give  it  to  others — that  would  despoil 
them  ;  do  not  sell  it — that  would  be  getting  the  price  of 
blood  ;  but  kindle  a  fire  on  your  kitchen  hoarth  or  in  your 
back  yard,  antl  put  the  poison  in  and  keep  stirring  the  bla/.c 
until  everything  has  gone  to  ashes  from  preface  to  appendix. 


CORRUPT  LITERATURE.  329 


EPHESIAN   MAGIC   BOOKS. 

"  Many  of  them  also  which  used  curious  arts  brought  their  books 
together,  and  burned  them  before  all  men  :  and  they  counted  the 
price  of  them,  and  found  it  fifty  thousand  pieces  of  silver. — Acis 
19:  19. 

Paul  had  been  stirring  up  Ephesus  with  some  lively  ser- 
mons about  the  sins  of  that  place.  Among  the  more  im- 
portant results  was  the  fact  that  the  citizens  brought  out 
their  bad  books,  and  in  a  public  place  made  a  bonfire  of  them. 
I  see  the  people  coming  out  with  their  arms  full  of  Ephesian 
literature,  and  tossing  it  into  the  flames.  I  hear  an  econo- 
mist standing  by,  and  saying,  "  Stop  this  waste.  Here  are 
seven  thousand  five  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  books — do  you 
propose  to  burn  them  all  up?  If  you  don't  want  to  read 
them  yourselves,  sell  them,  and  let  somebody  else  read  them. 
"  No,"  said  the  people,  "  if  these  books  are  not  good  for  us, 
they  are  not  good  for  anybody  else,  and  we  shall  stand  and 
watch  until  the  last  leaf  has  turned  to  ashes.  They  have 
done  us  a  world  of  harm,  and  they  shall  never  do  others 
harm."     Hear  the  flames  crackle  and  roar  I 

Well,  my  friends,  one  of  the  wants  of  the  cities  of  this 
country  is  a  great  bonfire  of  bad  books  and  newspapers.  We 
have  enough  fuel  to  make  a  blaze  two  hundred  feet  high. 
Many  of  the  publishing-houses  would  do  well  to  throw  into 
the  blaze  the  entire  stock  of  goods.  Bring  forth  the  in.suf- 
ferable  trash  and  put  it  into  the  fire,  and  let  it  be  known,  in 
the  presence  of  God,  and  angels,  and  men  that  you  are  going 
to  rid  your  homes  of  the  overtopping  and  underlying  curse 
of  profligate  literature. 


A  DAY  OF  RECKONING. 

We  must  not  forget  that  there  is  an  eternity  behind  us, 
and  there  is  an  eternity  before  us,  and  anything  that  will  un- 
fit us  for  the  coming  eternity  is  a  very  bad  investment ;  and 
alas!  for  that  man  or  that  woman  who,  resolved  to  adhere  to 


330  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

iniquitous  literature,  goes  right  on  in  that  way.     The   Lord 
will   stop  you  after  a  while.     The  day  is  coming. 


A   TERRIBLE   FATE. 

You  shall  be  cut  to  pieces,  if  not  by  an  aroused  com- 
munity, then  at  last  by  the  hail  of  divine  vengeance,  and  you 
shall  be  swept  to  the  lowest  pit  of  perdition  as  the  murder- 
ers of  souls.  I  tell  you,  though  you  may  escape  in  this 
world,  you  will  be  ground  at  last  under  the  hoof  of  eternal 
calamities,  and  you  will  be  chained  to  the  rock,  and  you 
will  have  the  vultures  of  despair  clawing  at  your  soul, 
and  those  whom  you  have  destroyed  will  come  around 
to  torment  you,  and  to  pour  hotter  coals  of  fury  upon  your 
head,  and  rejoice  eternally  in  the  outcry  of  your  pain,  and 
the  howl  of  your  damnation. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
Traps  for  Young  Men. 

It  may  be  almost  impossible  to  take  a  castle  by  siege — 
straightforward  siege — but  suppose  in  the  night  there  is  a 
traitor  within,  and  he  goes  down  and  draws  the  bolt  and 
swings  open  the  great  door,  and  then  the  castle  falls  imme- 
diately. That  is  the  trouble  with  the  hearts  of  the  young ; 
they  have  foes  without  and  foes  within.  There  are  a  great 
many  who  try  to  make  our  young  people  believe  that  it  is  a 
sign  of  weakness  to  be  pure.  The  man  will  toss  his  head  and 
take  dramatic  attitudes  and  tell  of  his  own  indiscretions,  and 
ask  the  young  man  if  he  would  not  like  to  do  the  same. 
And  they  call  him  verdant,  and  they  say  he  is  green  and  un- 
sophisticated, and  wonder  how  he  can  bear  the  Puritanical 
strait-jacket.  They  tell  him  he  ought  to  break  from,  his 
mother's  apron-strings,  and  they  say,  "  I  will  show  you  all 
about  town.  Come  with  me.  You  ought  to  see  the  world. 
It  won't  hurt  you.  Do  as  you  please,  it  will  be  the  making 
of  you."  After  a  while  the  young  man  says,  "  I  don't  want 
to  be  odd,  nor  can  I  afford  to  sacrifice  these  friends,  and  I'll 
go  and  see  for  myself."  From  the  gates  of  hell  there  goes 
a  shout  of  victory.  Farewell  to  all  innocence — farewell  to 
all  early  restraints  favorable  to  that  innocence  which,  once 
gone,  never  comes  back. 

How  many  traps  there  are  set  for  our  young  people ! 
That  is  what  makes  parents  so  anxious.  Here  are  tempta- 
tions for  every  form  of  dissipation  and  every  stage  of  it. 
The  young  man,  when  he  first  goes  into  dissipation,  is  very 
particular  where  he  goes.  It  must  be  a  fashionable  hotel. 
He  could  not  be  tempted  into  these  corner  nuisances,  with 
red-stained  glass  and  a  mug  of  beer  painted  on  the  sign-board. 
You  ask  the  young  man  to  go  into  that  place  and  he  would 

331 


332  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

say:  "Do  you  mean  to  insult  mc?"  No;  it  must  be  a 
marble-floored  bar-room.  There  must  be  no  lustful  pictures 
behind  the  counter  ;  there  must  be  no  drunkard  hiccough- 
ing while  he  takes  his  glass.  It  must  be  a  place  where 
elegant  gentlemen  come  in  and  click  their  cut  glass  and 
drink  to  the  announcement  of  flattering  sentiment.  But  the 
young  man  cannot  always  find  that  kind  of  a  place  ;  yet  he 
has  a  thirst  and  it  must  be  gratified.  The  down-grade  is 
steeper  now,  and  he  is  almost  at  the  bottom.  Here  they  sit 
in  an  oyster  cellar  around  a  card-table,  wheezing,  bloated, 
and  bloodshot,  with  cards  so  greasy  you  can  hardly  tell  who 
has  the  best  hand.  But  never  mind  ;  they  are  only  pla}'ing 
for  drink.  Shuffle  away!  shuffle  away!  The  landlord  stands 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  with  hands  on  his  hips,  watching  the 
game  and  waiting  for  another  call  to  fill  up  the  glasses. 

It  is  the  hot  breath  of  eternal  woe  that  flushes  that 
young  man's  check.  In  the  jets  of  gaslight  I  see  the  shoot- 
ing out  of  the  fiery  tongue  of  the  worm  that  never  dies. 
The  clock  strikes  twelve  ;  it  is  the  tolling  of  the  bell  of 
eternity  at  the  burial  of  a  soul.  Two  hours  pass  on,  and 
they  are  all  sound  asleep  in  their  chairs.  Landlord  says, 
"  Come,  now,  wake  up  ;  it's  time/  to  shut  up."  They  look 
up  and  say,  "  What  ?"  "  It's  time  to  shut  up."  Push  them 
out  into  the  air.  They  are  going  home.  Let  the  wife  crouch 
in  the  corner,  and  the  children  hide  under  the  bed.  They 
are  going  home  !  What  is  the  history  of  that  young  man? 
He  began  his  dissipation  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  and 
completed  his  damnation  in  the  worst  grog-shop  in  Navy 
Street. 

CITY   SNARES. 

I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  our  city  life  is  destroying 
too  many  young  men.  There  comes,  in  every  September 
and  October,  a  large  influx  of  those  between  sixteen  and 
twent}'-four  years  of  age,  and  New  York  and  Brooklyn  damn 
at  least  a  thonsand  of  t Item  every  year.  They  are  shovelled 
off   and    down  with    no   more  compunction    than    that  with 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  333 

which  a  coal-heaver  scoops  the  anthracite  into  a  dark  cellar. 
What  with  the  wine-cup  and  the  gambler's  dice,  and  the 
scarlet  enchantress,  no  young  man  without  the  grace  of  God 
is  safe  ten  minutes. 

There  is  much  discussion  about  which  is  the  worst  city 
of  the  continent.  Some  say  New  York,  some  say  New  Or- 
leans, some  say  Chicago,  some  say  St.  Louis.  What  I  have 
to  say  is,  you  cannot  make  much  comparison  between  the 
infinities,  and  in  all  our  cities  the  temptation  seems  infinite. 
We  keep  a  great  many  mills  running  day  and  night.  No 
rice-mills  or  cotton-mills.  Not  mills  of  corn  or  wheat,  but 
mills  for  grinding  up  men.  Such  are  all  the  grog-shops, 
licensed  and  unlicensed.  Such  are  all  the  gambling  saloons. 
Such  are  all  the  houses  of  infamy.  And  we  do  the  work 
according  to  law,  and  we  turn  out  a  new  grist  every  hour, 
and  grind  up  warm  hearts  and  clear  heads ;  and  the  earth 
about  a  cider-mill  is  not  more  saturated  with  the  beverage 
than  the  ground  about  all  these  mind-destroying  institutions 
is  saturated  with  the  blood  of  victims. 

We  say  to  Long  Island  neighborhoods  and  villages, 
"  Send  us  more  supply  ;"  and  to  Westchester  and  Ulster 
and  all  the  other  counties  of  New  York,  "  Send  us  more  men 
and  women  to  put  under  the  wheels."  Give  us  full  chance, 
and  we  could  grind  up  in  the  municipal  mill  five  hundred  a 
day.  We  have  enough  machinery ;  we  have  enough  men 
who  can  run  them.  Give  us  more  homes  to  crush  I  Give 
us  more  parental  hearts  to  pulverize  !  Put  into  the  hopper 
the  wardrobes  and  the  family  Bibles,  and  the  livelihoods  of 
wives  and  children.  Give  us  more  material  for  these  mighty 
mills,  which  are  wet  with  tears  and  sulphurous  with  woe,  and 
trembling  with  the  earthquakes  of  an  incensed  God,  who 
will,  unless  our  cities  repent,  cover  us  up  as  quick  and  as 
deep  as  in  August,  of  the  year  79,  Vesuvius  avalanched 
Herculaneum. 

But  sin  does  not  stop  here.  It  comes  to  the  door  of  the 
drawing-room.  There  are  men  of  leprous  hearts  that  go  into 
the  very  best  classes  of  society.  They  are  so  fascinating — • 
they  have  such  a  bewitching  way  of  offering  their  arm.    Yet 


334  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

the  poison  of  asps  is  under  the  tongue,  and  their  heart  is 
hell.  At  first  their  sinful  devices  are  hidden,  but  after  a 
while  they  begin  to  put  forth  their  talons  of  death.  Now 
they  begin  to  show  really  what  they  are.  Suddenly — 
although  you  could  not  have  expected  it,  they  were  so 
charming  in  their  manner,  so  fascinating  in  their  address — 
suddenly  a  cloud,  blacker  than  was  ever  woven  of  m.idnight 
or  hurricane,  drops  upon  some  domestic  circle.  There  is 
agony  in  the  parental  bosom  that  none  but  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  can  measure — an  agony  that  wishes  that  the  chil- 
dren of  the  household  had  been  swallowed  by  the  grave,  when 
it  would  be  only  a  loss  of  body  instead  of  a  loss  of  soul. 

What  is  the  matter  with  that  household  ?  They  have 
not  had  the  front  windows  open  in  six  months  or  a  year. 
The  mother's  hair  suddenly  turned  white ;  father,  hollow- 
cheeked  and  bent  over  prematurely,  goes  down  the  street. 
There  has  been  no  death  in  that  family — no  loss  of  property. 
Has  madness  seized  upon  them  ?  No  !  no  !  A  villain,  kid- 
gloved,  patent-leathered,  with  gold  chain  and  graceful  man- 
ner, took  that  cup  of  domestic  bliss,  elevated  it  high  in  the 
air  until  the  sunlight  struck  it,  and  all  the  rainbows  danced 
about  the  brim,  and  then  dashed  it  down  in  desolation  and 
woe,  until  all  the  harpies  of  darkness  clapped  their  hands 
with  glee,  and  all  the  voices  of  hell  uttered  a  loud  ha !  ha  ! 
Oh,  there  are  scores  and  hundreds  of  homes  that  have  been 
blasted,  and  if  the  awful  statistics  could  be  fully  set  before 
you,  your  blood  would  freeze  into  a  soHd  cake  of  ice  at  the 
heart. 


YOUNG   MEN   FROM   THE   COUNTRY. 

I  do  not  feel  so  sorry  for  young  men  who  were  born  in 
the  city  and  who  have  had  all  these  temptations  described 
before  them  until  they  know  what  they  are — I  am  not  so 
sorry  for  them  as  I  am  for  those  who  come  from  country 
homes  and  arc  easily  betraj-ed  and  easily  overthrown.  Oh, 
young  man  from  the  farmhouse  among  the  hills,  what  did 
your  parents  do  to  )-ou   that   you  should  do  this  to  them? 


TI^APS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  335 

Why  will  you,  by  going  into  a  life  of  dissipation,  break  the 
heart  of  her  who  gave  you  birth?  Look  at  her  hand,  so 
distort  are  the  knuckles.  Why  ?  Working  for  you.  Look 
at  the  back,  so  bent.  Why?  Carrying  your  burdens.  Oh, 
dissipated  young  man,  write  home  by  the  first  mail  to-mor- 
row, cursing  your  mother's  gray  hair,  cursing  the  chair  in 
which  she  sits,  cursing  the  cradle  in  which  she  rocked  you. 
"  Oh,"  you  say,  "  I  cannot,  I  cannot."  You  are  doing  worse 
than  that.  There  is  something  on  your  forehead  now. 
What  is  it  ?  Run  your  finger  over  your  forehead.  What  is 
it?     It  is  red.     It  is  the  blood  of  a  broken  heart. 

I  am  more  in  sympathy  with  such  persons  who  have 
come  from  the  country  life  to  the  city  life  because  I  was  a 
country  lad  myself,  and  saw  not  until  fifteen  years  of  age,  a 
great  city.  O  !  how  stupendous  New  York  seemed  to  me 
that  morning  I  arrived  at  Courtland  Street  Ferry.  I  came 
to  the  city  my  soul  all  awake  for  the  amusements  and  the 
hilarities  of  the  world.  No  soul  ever  more  awake,  or  more 
sympathetic  with  all  the  sports  and  amusements  of  life  than 
my  soul  was,  and  I  have  sometimes  thought  it  was  quite 
strange  I  was  not  captured  of  evil  and  dragged  down.  I 
was  talking  with  a  man  of  the  world  about  it  some  time  ago, 
and  though  he  pretended  to  be  only  a  man  of  the  world,  he 
said  :  "  I  guess,  sir,  there  must  have  been  some  prayers  hov- 
ering over  your  head — prayers  that  have  been  answered  !" 


BEHAVIOR   MAKES   THE   ABODE. 

I  have  noticed  that  a  man  never  likes  a  city  where  he  has 
not  behaved  well !  Swartout  did  not  like  New  York,  nor 
did  Parkman  like  Boston,  and  people  who  have  a  free  ride 
in  the  prison  van  never  like  the  city  that  furnishes  the  vehicle. 
When  I  find  Argos,  and  Rhodes,  and  Smyrna  trying  to 
prove  themselves  the  birthplace  of  Homer,  I  conclude  right 
away  that  Homer  behaved  well. 


336  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


NO   HALF  WAY. 

[The  Editor  here  remarks,  that,  to  be  safe,  one  must  shun  all  sin  as 
he  would  a  serpent,  and  treat  it  as  he  would  poison. J 

"  Death  in  the  pot." — 2  Kings  4  :  40. 

Elisha  had  gone  down  to  lecture  to  the  students  in  the 
theological  seminary  at  Gilgal.  He  found  the  students  very 
hungry,  as  students  are  apt  to  be.  It  is  very  seldom  the  world 
makes  large  provision  for  those  who  give  themselves  to  intel- 
lectual toil.  In  order  that  these  students  may  be  prepared 
to  hear  what  Elisha  says,  he  first  feeds  their  hunger.  He 
knew  very  well  it  is  useless  to  talk,  to  preach,  to  lecture,  to 
argue  with  hungry  men. 

So  Elisha  recognizing  this  common-sense  principle,  which 
every  Christian  ought  to  recognize,  sends  servants  out  to  get 
food  for  these  hungry  students.  They  pick  up  some  good, 
healthful  herbs,  but  they  happen  to  pick  up  also  some  colo- 
quintida,  a  bitter,  poisonous,  deathful  herb.  They  bring  all 
these  herbs,  they  put  them  into  the  boiling-pot,  they  stir 
them  up,  and  then  a  portion  of  this  food  is  brought  to  the 
students  and  their  professors.  Seated  at  the  table,  one  of  the 
hungry  students  begins  immediately  to  eat,  and  he  happens 
to  get  hold  of  some  of  the  coloquintida.  He  knew  it  by  the 
taste.  He  cries  out :  "  Poison,  poison !  O  thou  man  of 
God,  there  is  death  in  the  pot  !"  Consternation  is  thrown 
over  the  whole  group.  What  a  fortunate  thing  it  was  that 
this  student  so  early  found  the  coloquintida  in  the  mixture 
at  the  table !  You  will  by  reference  find  the  story  is  pre- 
cisely as  I  have  mentioned  it. 

Well,  in  our  day  there  are  great  caldrons  of  sin  and  death. 
Coloquintida  of  mighty  temptation  is  pressed  into  it.  Some 
dip  it  out,  and  taste,  and  reject  it,  and  live.  Others  (iij)  it 
out,  taste  it,  keep  on,  and  tile.  And  it  is  the  business  of 
ever}-  minister  of  religion  and  every  man  who  wishes  well  to 
the  human  race,  and  who  wants  to  keep  the  world  back  from 
its  follies  and  its  sufferings,  to  cry  out  :  "  Beware  I  poison, 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  337 

poison !     Look    out    for   this   caldron  !     Stand  back !     Be- 
ware !" 

In  Florence  there  is  a  fresco  by  Giotto  that  for  many 
ages  was  covered  up  by  two  thicknesses  of  whitewash.  It  is 
only  within  a  very  few  years  that  the  artist's  hand  has  come 
and  removed  that  covering,  and  the  fresco  comes  out  as  fair 
and  beautiful  as  it  was  before.  You  say  it  was  a  great  sacri- 
lege thus  to  cover  up  a  fine  fresco.  Yes,  but  it  is  a  sadder 
thing  that  the  image  of  God  in  the  human  soul  should  have 
been  covered  up  and  obliterated.  The  work  is  beyond  any 
human  hand  to  restore  the  divine  lineaments.  Sin  has  done 
an  awful  work  in  our  world.  It  has  gone  out  through  all  the 
ages,  it  has  mixed  up  a  great  caldron  of  trouble  and  suffer- 
ing and  pain,  and  the  whole  race  is  poisoned — poisoned  in 
body,  poisoned  in  mind,  poisoned  in  soul.  But  blessed  be 
God  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  antidote,  and 
where  there  was  sin  there  shall  be  pardon,  and  where  there 
was  suffering  there  shall  be  comfort,  and  where  there  was 
death  there  shall  be  life. 


AN   INDOLENT  LIFE. 

One  of  the  most  awful  caldrons  of  iniquity  is  an  indolent 
life.  All  the  rail-trains  down  the  Hudson  River,  all  the  rail- 
trains  on  the  Pennsylvania  route,  all  the  trains  on  the  Long 
Island  road  bring  to  these  cities  young  men  to  begin  com- 
mercial life.  Do  you  know  what  one  of  their  great  tempta- 
tions is  ?  It  is  the  example  of  indolent  people  in  our  cities. 
They  are  in  all  our  cities.  They  dress  better  than  some  who 
are  industrious.  They  have  access  to  all  places  of  amuse- 
ment— plenty  of  money,  and  yet  idle.  They  hang  around 
our  great  hotels — the  Pierrepont  House,  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
the  Windsor,  the  Brunswick,  the  Stuyvesant,  the  Gilsey 
House — all  our  beautiful  hotels,  you  find  them  around  there 
any  day — men  who  do  nothing,  never  earn  anything,  yet 
well-dressed,  having  plenty.  Why  should  I  work?  Why 
should  you  work?     Why  drudge  and  toil  in  bank  and  shop 


JJ' 


TA'L'MPET  PEALS. 


and  office,  or  on  the  scaffolding,  or  by  the  anvil,  when  these 
men  get  along  so  well  and  do  not  work? 

Some  of  them  hang  around  the  City  Halls  of  our  great 
cities,  toothpick  in  their  mouth,  waiting  for  some  crumb  to 
fall  from  the  office-holder's  table.  Some  of  them  hang 
around  the  City  Hall  for  the  city  van  bringing  criminals  from 
the  station-houses.  They  stand  there  and  gloat  over  it — 
really  enjoy  the  disgrace  and  suffering  of  those  poor  creatures 
as  they  get  out  of  the  city  van  and  go  into  the  courts. 

Where  do  they  get  their  money?  That  is  what  you  ask. 
That  is  what  I  ask.  Only  four  ways  of  getting  money,  only 
four  :  by  inheritance,  by  earning  it,  by  begging  it,  by  steal- 
ing it ;  and  there  are  a  vast  multitude  among  us  who  get 
their  living  not  by  inheritance,  nor  by  earning  it,  nor  by  beg- 
ging it.  I  do  not  like  to  take  the  responsibility  of  saying 
how  they  get  it ! 

Now,  these  men  are  a  constant  temptation.  Why  should  I 
toil  and  wear  myself  out  in  the  bank,  or  the  office,  or  the 
store,  or  the  shop, or  the  factory?  These  men  have  nothing 
to  do.  They  get  along  a  great  deal  better.  And  that  is  the 
temptation  under  which  a  great  many  young  men  fall.  They 
begin  to  consort  with  these  men,  these  idlers,  and  they  go 
down  the  same  aw^ful  steeps.  The  number  of  men  in  our 
cities  who  are  trying  to  get  their  living  by  their  wits  and  by 
sleight-of-hand  is  all  the  time  increasing. 

A  New  York  vicrcliant  saw  a  }'Oung  man,  one  of  his  clerks, 
in  half  disguise,  going  into  a  very  low  place  of  amusement. 
The  merchant  said  to  himself:  "I  must  look  out  for  that 
clerk  ;  he  is  going  in  bad  company  and  going  in  bad  places ; 
I  must  look  out  for  him."  A  few  months  passed  on,  and 
one  morning  the  merchant  entered  his  store,  and  this  clerk 
of  whom  I  have  been  speaking  came  up  in  assumed  conster- 
nation and  said  :  "  Oh,  sir,  the  store  has  been  on  fire ;  I  have 
put  out  the  fire,  but  there  are  a  great  many  goods  lost;  we 
have  had  a  great  crowd  of  people  coming  and  going."  Then 
the  merchant  took  the  clerk  by  the  collar  and  said:  "  I  have 
had  enough  of  this  ;  you  cannot  deceive  me  ;  where  are  those 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  339 

goods  that  you  stole  ?"    The  young  man  instantly  confessed 
his  villainy. 

0  the  numbers  of  people  in  these  great  cities  who  are  try- 
ing to  get  their  living  not  honestly  !  And  they  are  a  mighty 
temptation  to  the  industrious  young  man  who  cannot  under- 
stand it.  While  these  others  have  it  so  easy  they  have  it  so 
hard,  Horatius  of  olden  time  was  told  that  he  could  have 
just  as  much  ground  as  he  could  plough  around  with  a  yoke 
of  oxen  in  one  day.  He  hooked  up  the  oxen  to  the  plough, 
and  he  cut  a  very  large  circle  and  ploughed  until  he  came 
to  the  same  point  where  he  started,  and  all  that  property 
was  his.  But  I  have  to  tell  you  to-day  that  just  so  much 
financial,  just  so  much  moral,  just  so  much  spiritual  posses- 
sion you  will  have  as  you  compass  with  your  own  industries, 
and  just  so  much  as  from  the  morning  of  your  life  to  the 
evening  of  your  life  you  can  plough  around  with  your  own 
hard  work.  "  Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard,  consider  her 
ways  and  be  wise." 

HOW   SWIFT  THE   RIVER ! 

1  was  on  the  St.  Lawrence  River  and  the  current  was 
very  swift,  and  I  said  :  "  Captain,  how  swift  the  river  is." 
"Oh,"  he  replied,  "  not  much  here,  but  seventy-five  miles 
on  further  it  is  ten  times  swifter,  and  we  employ  an  In- 
dian pilot,  and  we  give  him  a  thousand  dollars  a  summer 
to  take  us  through  between  the  Thousand  Islands  and  be- 
tween the  rocks."  Every  man  who  comes  from  the  country 
to  the  city  life  comes  from  smooth  water  into  the  rapids. 
There  are  thousands  of  islands  of  enchantment  and  many 
rocks  of  peril.  Oh,  I  wonder  if  you  are  going  to  have  good 
pilotage. 

Do  you  know,  my  brother,  that  the  report  of  your  dis- 
sipation has  already  got  back  to  the  old  homestead  ?  "  Oh, 
no,"  you  say,  "  that  isn't  possible."  It  is  possible.  There 
are  always  people  ready  to  carry  bad  news,  and  of  these 
people  that  desire  to  carry  bad  news  there  is  an  accursed  old 
gossip  wending  her  infernal  step  toward  the  old  homestead. 


340  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

She  has  been  there.  She  sat  down  in  a  chair  and  she  wrig- 
gled about  for  a  while  and  said  she  could  not  stay  a  great 
while.  But  she  said  to  your  parents :  "  Do  you  know  your 
son gaviblcs ?  do  you  know  your  son  drinks?"  And  the  old 
people  got  very  white  about  the  lips,  and  your  mother  said  : 
"Just  open  the  door  a  little,  so  we  may  have  fresh  air." 
And  after  this  bad  messenger  went  away  your  mother  came 
out  and  sat  down  on  the  steps  where  you  used  to  play,  and 
she  cried  and  cried  and  cried,  and  took  off  her  spectacles, 
and  with  her  apron  wiped  off  the  mist  of  tears. 

After  a  while  she  will  be  very  sick  and  the  old  gig  of  the 
country  doctor  will  come  up  the  country  lane,  and  the  horse 
will  be  tied  at  the  swinging  gate,  and  the  prescriptions  will 
fail,  and  she  will  get  worse  and  worse,  and  in  her  last  delirium 
she  will  talk  about  nothing  but  you.  And  then  the  farmers 
will  come  to  the  funeral.  They  will  tic  their  horses  to  the 
rail  of  the  fence,  and  they  will  talk  over  what  ailed  the  de- 
parted, and  one  will  say  it  was  intermittent,  and  another 
will  say  it  was  congestion,  and  another  will  say  it  was  prem- 
ature old  age.  Oh,  no.  It  will  be  neither  intermittent, 
nor  congestion,  nor  premature  old  age ;  but  it  will  be  re- 
corded in  the  book  of  God  Almighty  that  yoii  killed  her  ! 

Our  language  is  very  fertile  in  describing  crime.  Slay- 
ing a  man,  that  is  homicide;  slaying  a  brother,  that  is  fratri- 
cide ;  slaying  a  father,  that  is  patricide ;  slaying  a  mother, 
that  is  matricide.  But  you  go  on  in  that  way,  oh,  wander- 
ing and  dissipated  soul,  and  it  will  take  two  words  to  de- 
scribe your  crime — patricide  and  matricide.  Oh,  come 
home  to  thy  God,  come  home  to  thy  father's  God,  thy 
mother's  God.  Just  fold  }-our  hands  to-day  and  say  Avith 
another: 

"For  sinners,  Lord,  Thou  earnest  to  bleed, 
And  I'm  a  sinner  vile  indeed  ; 
Lord,  I  believe  Thy  grace  is  free, 
O  !  magnify  that  grace  in  me," 

Do  not  let  the  world  destroy  you.  Do  not  get  swindled 
out  of  Heaven  ! 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  34 1 


DIVERSITY   OF  TEMPTATIONS. 

I  have  heard  men  in  mid-life  say  they  had  never  been 
led  into  temptation.  If  you  have  not  felt  temptation  it  is 
because  you  have  not  tried  to  do  right.  A  man  hoppled 
and  handcuffed,  as  long  as  he  lies  quietly,  does  not  test  the 
power  of  the  chain  ;  but  when  he  rises  up,  and  with  deter- 
mination resolves  to  snap  the  handcuff  or  break  the  hopple, 
then  he  finds  the  power  of  the  iron.  And  there  are  men 
who  have  been  for  ten  and  twenty  and  thirty  years  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  evil  habits  who  have  never  felt  the  power 
of  the  chain,  because  they  have  never  tried  to  break  it.  It 
is  very  easy  to  go  on  down  with  the  stream  and  with  the 
wind,  lying  on  your  oars;  but  just  turn  around  and  try  to 
go  against  the  wind  and  the  tide,  and  you  will  find  it  is  a 
different  matter.  As  long  as  we  go  down  the  current  of  our 
evil  habit  we  seem  to  get  along  quite  smoothly  ;  but  if  after 
a  while  we  turn  around  and  head  the  other  way,  toward 
Christ  and  pardon  and  heaven,  oh,  then  how  we  have  to  lay 
to  the  oars !  You  will  have  your  temptation.  You  one 
kind,  you  another,  you  another,  not  one  person  escaping. 

It  is  all  folly  for  you  to  say  to  some  one,  "  I  could  not 
be  tempted  as  you  are."  The  lion  thinks  it  is  so  strange  that 
the  fish  should  be  caught  with  a  hook.  The  fish  thinks  it  is 
so  strange  that  the  lion  should  be  caught  with  a  trap.  You 
see  some  man  with  a  cold,  phlegmatic  temperament,  and 
you  say,  "  I  suppose  that  man  has  not  any  temptation," 
Yes,  as  much  as  you  have.  In  his  phlegmatic  nature  he  has 
a  temptation  to  indolence  and  censoriousness  and  over- 
eating and  drinking;  a  temptation  to  ignore  the  great  work 
of  life  ;  a  temptation  to  lay  down  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
all  good  enterprises.  The  temperament  decides  the  styles 
of  temptation ;  but  sanguine  or  lymphatic,  you  will  have 
temptation  ;  Satan  has  a  grappling-hook  just  fitted  for  your 
soul.  A  man  never  lives  beyond  the  reach  of  temptation. 
You  say  when  a  man  gets  to  be  seventy  or  eighty  years  of 
age  he  is  safe  from  all  Satanic  assault.     You  are  very  much 


342  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

mistaken.  A  man  at  ciglity-fivc  years  of  age  has  as  many 
temptations  as  a  man  at  twenty-five.  They  are  only  differ- 
ent styles  of  temptation.  Ask  the  aged  Christian  whether 
he  is  never  assaulted  of  the  powers  of  darkness.  If  you 
think  you  have  conquered  the  power  of  temptation,  you  are 
very  much  mistaken. 

A  man  who  wanted  the  Papal  throne  pretended  he  was 
very  weak  and  sickly,  and  if  he  was  elected  he  would  soon 
be  gone.  He  crawled  upon  his  crutches  to  the  throne,  and 
having  attained  it  he  was  strong  again.  He  said,  "  It  was 
well  for  me  while  I  was  looking  for  the  sceptre  of  another 
that  I  should  stoop,  but  now  that  I  have  found  it,  why 
should  I  stoop  any  longer?"  and  he  threw  away  his  crutches 
and  was  well  again.  How  illustrative  of  the  power  of  temp- 
tation!  You  think  it  is  a  weak  and  crippled  influence;  but 
give  it  a  chance,  and  it  will  be  a  tyrant  in  your  soul,  it  will 
grind  you  to  atoms. 

COMMERCIAL  PHARISEES. 

This  title  photographs  all  those  who  are  abhorrent  of  small 
sins,  while  they  are  reckless  in  regard  to  magnificent  thefts. 
You  will  find  many  a  merchant  who,  while  he  is  so  careful 
that  he  would  not  take  a  yard  of  cloth  or  a  spool  of  cotton 
from  the  counter,  without  paying  for  it,  and  who,  if  a  bank 
cashier  should  make  a  mistake  and  send  in  a  roll  of  bills  five 
dollars  too  much,  would  despatch  a  messenger  in  hot  haste 
to  return  the  surplus,  yet  who  will  go  into  a  stock  company 
in  which,  after  awhile,  he  gets  control  of  the  stock,  and  then 
waters  the  stock  and  makes  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
appear  like  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  He  only  stole 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  by  the  operation.  Many  of 
the  men  of  fortune  made  their  wealth  in  that  way. 

One  of  those  men  engaged  in  such  unrighteous  acts,  that 
evening — the  evening  of  the  very  day  when  he  watered  the 
stock — will  find  a  wharf-rat  stealing  a  newspaper  from  the 
basement  tloorwaj-,  and  will  go  out  and  catch  the  urchin  b)' 
the. collar,  and  twist  the  collar  so  tightly  that  the  poor  fellow 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  343 

cannot  say  it  was  thirst  for  knowledge  that  led  him  to  the 
disho-nest  act;  tighter  and  tighter  will  he  grip,  saying,  "  I 
have  been  looking  for  you  a  long  while ;  you  stole  my  paper 
four  or  five  times,  haven't  you  ?  you  miserable  wretch."  And 
then  the  old  stock-gambler,  with  a  voice  they  can  hear  three 
blocks,  will  cry  out,  "Police!  police!"  That  same  man,  the 
evening  of  the  day  in  which  he  watered  the  stock,  will  kneel 
with  his  family  in  prayers,  and  thank  God  for  the  prosperity 
of  the  day,  then  kiss  his  children  good-night  with  an  air 
which  seems  to  say,  "  I  hope  you  will  all  grow  up  to  be  as 
good  as  your  father."  Prisons  for  sins  insectile  in  size,  but 
palaces  for  crimes  dromedarian.  No  mercy  for  sins  animal- 
cule in  proportion,  but  great  leniency  for  mastodon  iniquity. 
A  poor  boy  slyly  takes  from  the  basket  of  a  market  woman 
a  choke-pear — saving  some  one  else  from  the  cholera — and 
you  smother  him  in  the  horrible  atmosphere  of  Raymond 
Street  Jail,  or  New  York  Tombs,  while  his  cousin,  who  has 
been  skilful  enough  to  steal  fifty  thousand  dollars  from  the 
city,  you  will  make  a  candidate  for  the  New  York  Legisla- 
ture! 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness  and  nervousness  now 
among  some  people  in  our  time  who  have  gotten  unrig  ht 
eous  fortunes ;  a  great  deal  of  nervousness  about  dynamite. 
I  tell  them  that  God  will  put  under  their  unrighteous  for- 
tunes something  more  explosive  than  dynamite — the  earth- 
quake of  His  omnipotent  indignation.  It  is  time  that  we 
learn  in  America  that  sin  is  not  excusable  in  proportion  as 
it  declares  large  dividends  and  has  outriders  in  equipage. 
Many  a  man  is  riding  to  perdition,  postilion  ahead  and 
lackey  behind.  To  steal  one  copy  of  a  newspaper  is  a  gnat ; 
to  steal  many  thousands  of  dollars  is  a  camel.  There  is 
many  a  fruit-dealer  who  would  not  consent  to  steal  a  basket 
of  peaches  from  a  neighbor's  stall,  but  who  would  not  scruple 
to  depress  the  fruit  market ;  and  as  long  as  I  can  remember, 
we  have  heard  every  summer  the  peach  crop  of  Maryland  is 
a  failure,  and  by  the  time  the  crop  comes  in,  the  misrepre- 
sentation makes  a  difference  of  millions  of  dollars.     A  man 


344  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

who  would  not  steal  one  peach  basket,  steals  fifty  thousand 
peach  baskets. 

Go  down  in  the  summer-time  into  the  Mercantile  Library, 
in  the  reading-rooms,  and  see  the  newspaper  reports  of  the 
crops  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  their  phraseology 
is  very  much  the  same,  and  the  same  men  wrote  them, 
methodically  and  infamously  carrying  out  the  huge  lying 
about  the  grain  crop  from  year  to  year,  and  for  a  score  of 
years.  After  a  while  there  will  be  a  "corner"  in  the  wheat 
market,  and  men  who  have  a  contempt  for  a  petty  theft,  will 
burglarize  the  wheat-bin  of  a  nation,  and  commit  larceny  upon 
the  American  corn-crib.  And  some  of  the  men  will  sit  in 
churches,  and  in  reformatory  institutions,  trying  to  strain  out 
the  small  gnats  of  scoundrelism,  while  in  their  grain  elevators 
and  their  store-houses  they  are  fattening  huge  camels,  which 
they  expect,  after  a  while,  to  swallow.  Society  has  to  be 
entirely  reconstructed  on  this  subject.  We  are  to  find  that 
a  sin  is  inexcusable  in  proportion  as  it  is  great.  I  know  in 
our  time  the  tendency  is  to  charge  religious  frauds  upon 
good  men.  They  say,  "  O  what  a  class  of  frauds  you  have 
in  the  Church  of  God  in  this  day!"  And  when  an  elder  of 
a  church,  or  a  deacon,  or  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  or  a 
superintendent  of  a  Sabbath-school,  turns  out  a  defaulter, 
what  display  heads  there  are  in  many  of  the  newspapers. 
Great-primer  type.  Five-line  pica,  "Another  Saint  Ab- 
sconded!" "Clerical  Scoundrelism;"  "Religion  at  a  dis- 
count !"  "  Shame  on  the  Churches  !"  Yet  there  are  a  thou- 
sand scoundrels  outside  the  Church  to  where  there  is  one 
inside  the  Church,  and  the  misbehavior  of  those  who  never 
see  the  inside  of  a  church  is  so  great  it  is  enough  to  tempt 
a  man  to  become  a  Christian  to  get  out  of  their  company. 
But  in  all  circles,  religious  and  irreligious,  the  tendenc}'  is  to 
excuse  sin  in  proportion  as  it  is  mammoth.  Even  John 
Milton,  in  his  "  Paradise  Lost,"  while  he  condemns  Satan, 
gives  such  a  grand  description  of  him  you  have  hard  work 
to  suppress  your  admiration.  O  this  straining  out  of  small 
sins  like  gnats,  and  this  gulping  down  great  iniquities  like 
camels! 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  345 


SIN  WILL  OUT. 


The  smallest  iniquity  has  a  thousand  tongues,  and  they 
will  blab  out  an  exposure.  Saul  was  sent  to  destroy  the 
Canaanites,  their  sheep  and  their  oxen.  But  when  he  got 
down  there  among  the  pastures  he  saw  some  fine  sheep  and 
oxen  too  fat  to  kill,  and  so  he  thought  he  would  steal  them. 
He  drove  them  towards  home,  but  stopped  to  report  to  the 
prophet  how  well  he  had  executed  his  commission,  when  in 
the  distance  the  sheep  began  to  bleat  and  the  oxen  to  bel- 
low. The  secret  was  out,  and  Samuel  said  to  the  blushing 
and  confounded  Saul :  "  What  means  this  bleating  of  the 
sheep  that  I  hear  and  the  lowing  of  the  cattle  ?"  Aye,  my 
hearers,  you  cannot  keep  an  iniquity  quiet.  At  just  the 
wrong  time  the  sheep  will  bleat  and  the  oxen  will  bellow. 
Achan  cannot  steal  the  Babylonish  garment  without  getting 
stoned  to  death,  nor  Benedict  Arnold  betray  his  country 
without  having  his  neck  stretched.  Look  over  the  police 
arrests,  these  thieves,  these  burglars,  these  adulterers,  these 
counterfeiters,  these  highwaymen,  these  assassins.  They  all 
thought  they  could  bury  their  iniquity  so  deep  down  that  it 
would  never  come  to  resurrection.  But  there  was  some  shoe 
that  answered  to  the  print  in  the  sand,  some  false  keys  found 
in  possession,  some  bloody  knife  that  whispered  of  the  deed, 
and  the  public  indignation,  and  the  anathema  of  outraged 
law  hurled  him  into  the  Tombs  or  hoisted  him  on  the  gal- 
lows. At  the  close  of  the  battle  between  the  Dauphin  of 
France  and  the  Helvetians,  Burchard  Monk  was  so  elated 
with  the  victory  that  he  lifted  his  helmet  to  look  off  upon 
the  field,  when  a  wounded  soldier  hurled  a  stone  that  struck 
his  uncovered  forehead  and  he  fell.  Sin  always  leaves  some 
point  exposed ;  there  is  no  safety  in  iniquity.  Francis  the 
First,  King  of  France,  was  discussing  how  it  was  best  to  get 
his  army  into  Italy.  Amaril,  the  court  fool,  sprang  out  from 
the  corner  and  said  to  the  king  and  his  staff-officers:  "You 
had  better  be  thinking  how  you  will  get  your  army  back  out 
of  Italy  after  once  you  have  entered."  In  other  words,  it  is 
easier  for  us  to  get  into  sin  than  to  get  out  of  it.  Do  not 
think  that  you   can   hide  any  great  and   protracted  sin  in 


34^  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

your  hearts.  In  an  unguarded  moment  it  will  slip  off  of 
the  lip,  or  some  slight  occasion  may  for  a  moment  set  ajar 
this  door  of  hell  that  you  wanted  to  keep  closed.  But  sup- 
pose that  in  this  life  you  hide  it,  and  you  get  along  with  that 
transgression  burning  in  your  heart,  as  a  ship  on  fire  within 
for  days  may  hinder  the  flame  from  bursting  out  by  keeping 
down  the  hatchways,  yet  at  last,  in  the  Judgment,  that  ini- 
quity will  blaze  out  before  God  and  the  universe. 

HISSED  OFF   THE   STAGE. 

"  Men  shall  clap  their  hands  at  him,  and  shall  hiss  him  out  of  his 
place." — Job  27:  23. 

This  allusion  seems  to  be  dramatic.  The  Bible  more 
than  once  makes  such  allusion.  Paul  says  :  "  We  are  made 
a  theatre  (or  spectacle)  to  angels  and  to  men."  The  theatre 
is  so  old  that  no  one  can  fix  the  date  of  its  birth.  Archilo- 
chus,  Simonides,  and  Solon,  who  wrote  for  it  dithyrambics, 
lived  about  six  or  seven  hundred  years  before  Christ.  It  is 
evident  from  the  text  that  some  of  the  habits  of  the  theatre- 
goers were  known  in  Job's  time,  because  in  the  text  he  de- 
scribes an  actor  hissed  off  the  stage.  The  impersonator 
comes  on  the  boards,  and  either  through  lack  of  study  of 
the  part  he  is  to  take,  or  inaptness,  or  other  incapacity,  the 
spectators  are  offended,  and  express  their  disapprobation 
and  disgust  first  by  over-applause,  attempting  by  great 
clapping  of  hands  to  drown  out  what  he  says,  and,  that  fail- 
ing to  stop  the  performer,  they  put  their  tongue  against 
their  teeth,  and  make  terrific  sibilation  until  he  disappears 
behind  the  curtain.  "Men  shall  clap  their  hands  at  him, 
and  shall  hiss  him  out  of  his  place." 

EVERY   MAN   HAS   A   PART. 

My  text  suggests  that  each  one  of  us  is  put  on  the  stage  of 
this  world  to  take  some  part.  Each  one  is  assigned  a  place, 
no  supernumeraries  hanging  around  the  drama  of  life  to 
take  this  or  that  or  ihc  other  part,  as  he  maybe  called  upon. 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  S47 

No  one  can  take  our  place.  We  can  take  no  other  place. 
Ay,  it  is  not  the  impersonation  of  another  ;  we  ourselves 
are  the  real  Merchant  of  Venice  or  the  real  Shylock  ;  the 
real  filial  Cordelia  or  the  real  cruel  Regan  ;  the  real  Portia 
or  the  real  Lady  Macbeth.  The  tragedian  of  the  playhouse, 
at  the  close  of  the  third  scene  of  the  fifth  act,  takes  off  the 
attire  of  Gonzalo  or  Edward  Mortimer  or  Henry  V.,  and  re- 
signs the  character  in  which  for  three  hours  he  appeared. 
But  we  never  put  off  our  character,  and  no  change  of  apparel 
can  make  us  any  one  else  than  that  which  we  eternally  are. 
McCuIlough,  the  actor,  was  no  more  certainly  appointed  on 
any  occasion  to  appear  as  Spartacus,  or  Edwin  Forrest  as 
King  Lear,  or  Charlotte  Cushman  as  Meg  Merrilies,  or  John 
Kemble  as  Macbeth,  or  Cooke  as  Richard  IIL,  or  Kean  as 
Othello,  than  you  and  I  are  expected  to  take  some  especial 
and  particular  part  in  the  great  drama  of  human  and  im- 
mortal life.  Through  what  hardship  and  suffering  and  dis- 
cipline these  artists  went  year  after  year  that  they  might  be 
perfected  in  their  parts,  you  have  often  read.  But  we,  put 
on  the  stage  of  this  life  to  represent  charity  and  faith  and 
humility  and  helpfulness — what  little  preparation  we  have 
made,  although  we  have  three  galleries  of  spectators — earth 
and  heaven  and  hell  !  Have  we  not  been  more  attentive  to 
the  part  taken  by  others  than  to  the  part  taken  by  our- 
selves, and  while  we  needed  to  be  looking  at  home  and  con- 
centring on  our  own  duty,  we  have  been  criticising  the 
other  performers,  and  saying:  "That  was  too  high,"  or 
"  too  low,"  or  "  too  feeble,"  or  ''  too  extravagant,"  or  "  too 
tame,"  or  "  too  demonstrative,"  while  we  were  making  our- 
selves a  dead  failure  and  preparing  to  be  ignominiously 
hissed  off  the  stage  ? 

Now,  compare  some  of  these  goings  out  of  life  with  the 
departure  of  men  and  women  who  in  the  drama  of  life  took 
the  part  that  God  assigned  them,  and  then  went  away  hon- 
ored of  men,  and  applauded  of  the  Lord  Almighty. 

A   CONSECRATED   HOME. 
It  is  about  fifty  years  ago  that  in  a  comparatively  small 


348  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

apartment  of  the  city  a  newly-married  pair  set  up  a  home. 
Tlic  first  guest  that  was  invited  in  that  residence  was  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Bible  given  the  bride  on  the  day 
of  her  espousals  was  the  guide  of  that  household.  Days  of 
sunshine  were  followed  by  days  of  shadow.  Did  you  ever 
know  a  home  that  for  fifty  years  had  no  vicissitude  ? 

Years  passed  on,  and  there  were  in  that  home  hilarities, 
but  they  were  good  and  healthful ;  and  sorrows,  but  they 
were  comforted.  Marriages  as  bright  as  orange-blossoms 
could  make  them,  and  burials  in  which  all  hearts  were 
riven.  They  have  a  family  lot  in  the  cemetery,  but  all  the 
place  is  illuminated  with  stories  of  resurrection  and  reunion. 
The  children  of  the  household  that  lived  have  grown  up, 
and  they  are  all  Christians,  the  father  and  mother  leading 
the  way,  and  the  children  following.  What  care  the  mother 
took  of  wardrobe  and  education  and  character  and  man- 
ners !  How  hard  she  sometimes  worked  !  When  the  head 
of  the  household  was  unfortunate  in  business  she  sewed  un- 
til her  fingers  were  numb  and  bleeding  at  the  tips.  And 
what  close  calculation  of  economies,  and  what  ingenuity  in 
refitting  the  garments  of  the  elder  children  for  the  younger  I 
And  only  God  kept  account  of  that  mother's  sideaches  and 
headaches  and  heartaches  and  the  tremulous  prayers  by  the 
side  of  the  sick  child's  cradle,  and  by  the  couch  of  this  one 
fully  grown.  The  neighbors  often  noticed  how  tired  she 
looked,  and  old  acquaintances  hardly  knew  her  in  the  street ; 
but  without  complaint  she  waited  and  toiled  and  endured 
and  accomplished  all  these  years. 

AN   EXIT. 

The  children  are  out  in  the  world,  an  honor  to  them- 
selves and  their  parents.  After  a  while  the  mother's  last 
sickness  comes.  Children  and  grandchildren,  summoned 
from  afar,  come  softly  into  the  room  one  by  one,  for  she  is 
too  weak  to  see  more  than  one  at  a  time.  She  runs  her 
dying  fingers  lovingly  through  their  hair,  and  tells  them  not 
to  cr\",  and  that  she    is  going   now,  but   they  will   all    meet 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  349 

again  in  a  little  while,  in  a  better  world,  and  then  kisses 
them  good-by  and  "  God  bless  and  keep  you,  my  dear 
child !"  The  day  of  the  obsequies  comes,  and  the  officiat- 
ing clergyman  tells  the  story  of  wifely  and  motherly  endur- 
ance, and  many  hearts  on  earth  and  in  heaven  echo  the  sen- 
timent ;  and  as  she  is  carried  off  the  stage  of  this  mortal  life 
there  are  cries  of  "  Faithful  unto  death  ;  she  hath  done  what 
she  could,"  while  overpowering  all  the  voices  of  earth  and 
heaven  is  the  plaudit  of  the  God  who  watched  her  from  first 
to  last,  saying :  "  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant ; 
thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  make  thee 
ruler  over  many  things.  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord." 

But  what  became  of  the  father  of  that  household  ?  He 
started  out  as  a  young  man  in  business  and  had  small  in- 
come, and  having  got  a  little  ahead,  sickness  in  the  family 
swept  it  all  away.  He  went  through  all  the  business  panics 
of  forty  years,  met  many  losses,  and  suffered  many  betray- 
als, but  kept  right  on  trusting  in  God,  whether  business  was 
good  or  poor,  setting  his  children  a  good  example,  giving 
them  the  best  of  counsel ;  and  never  a  prayer  did  he  offer  for 
all  those  years  but  they  were  mentioned  in  it.  He  is  old. 
now,  and  realizes  it  cannot  be  long  before  he  must  quit  all 
these  scenes  ;  but  he  is  going  to  leave  his  children  an  inher- 
itance of  prayer  and  Christian  principles  which  all  the  defal- 
cations of  earth  can  never  touch  ;  and  as  he  goes  out  of  the 
world  the  Church  of  God  blesses  him,  and  the  poor  ring  his 
door-bell  to  see  if  he  is  any  better,  and  his  grave  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  multitude  who  went  on  foot  and  stood  there 
before  the  procession  of  carriages  came  up,  and  some  say, 
"  There  will  be  no  one  to  take  his  place,"  and  others  say, 
"  Who  will  pity  me  now  ?"  and  others  remark,  "  He  shall  be 
held  in  everlasting  remembrance."  And  as  the  drama  of 
his  life  closes,  all  the  vociferations  and  bravos  and  encores 
that  ever  shook  the  amphitheatres  and  the  Drury  Lanes  and 
the  Covent  Gardens  and  the  Haymarkets  and  the  Coliseums 
of  earthly  spectacle  were  tame  and  feeble  compared  with 
the  long,  loud  thunders  of  approval  that  shall  break  from  the 


350  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

cloud  of  witnesses  in  the  piled-up  j^allery  of  the  heavens. 
Choose  ye  between  the  life  that  shall  close  by  being  hissed 
off  the  stage  and  the  life  that  shall  close  amid  the  accla- 
mations supernal  and  archangelic. 

SHAKESPEARE'S   WILL. 

O  men  and  women  on  the  stage  of  life,  many  of  you  in 
the  first  act  of  the  drama,  and  others  in  the  second,  and 
some  of  you  in  the  third,  and  a  few  in  the  fourth,  and  here 
and  there  one  in  the  fifth,  but  all  of  you  between  entrance 
and  exit,  I  quote  to  you  as  the  peroration  of  this  sermon 
the  most  suggestive  passage  that  Shakespeare  ever  wrote, 
although  you  never  heard  it  recited.  The  author  has  often 
been  claimed  as  infidel  and  atheistic,  so  the  quotation  shall 
be  not  only  religiously  helpful  to  ourselves,  but  grandly  vin- 
dicatory of  the  great  dramatist.  I  quote  from  his  last  will 
and  testament:  "  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  I,  William 
Shakespeare,  of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  in  the  County  of  War- 
wick, gentleman,  in  perfect  health  and  memory  (God  be 
praised),  do  make  this  my  last  will  and  testament  in  manner 
and  form  following.  First,  I  commend  my  soul  into  the 
hands  of  God,  my  Creator,  hoping  and  assuredly  believing 
through  the  only  merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  my  Saviour,  to  be 
made  partaker  of  life  everlasting."  Then  follow  the  be- 
quests and  the  signature:  "  By  me,  William  Shakespeare." 
"  Witnesses  to  the  publishing  hereof,  F.  CoUyns,  Jesse 
Shaw,  John  Robinson,  Hamnet  Sadler,  Robert  Whattcott." 

WINTER   TEMPTATIONS. 

There  is  something  in  the  winter  season  that  not  only 
tests  our  physical  endurance,  but,  especially  in  the  city,  tries 
our  moral  character.  It  is  the  winter  months  that  ruin 
morally  and  forever  many  of  our  young  men.  We  sit  in  the 
house  on  a  winter's  night,  and  hear  the  storm  raging  on  the 
outside,  and  imagine  the  helpless  crafts  driven  on  the  coast ; 
but,  if  our   ears  were   only  good   enough,  we  could   on  any 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  35 1 

winter  night  hear  the  crash  of  a  hundred  vi07'al  sJiipzvrccks. 
Many  who  come  in  September  to  town  by  the  first  of 
March  will  have  been  blasted.  It  only  takes  one  winter  to 
ruin  a  young  man.  When  the  long  winter  evenings  have 
come  many  of  our  young  men  will  improve  them  in  forming 
a  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  books,  contracting  higher 
social  friendships,  and  strengthening  and  ennobling  charac- 
ters. But  not  so  with  all.  I  will  show  you  before  I  get 
through  that  at  this  season  of  the  year  temptations  are 
especially  rampant,  and  my  counsel  is.  Look  out  how  you 
spend  your  winter  nights  ! 

THE   devil's   harvest  TIME. 

I  remark,  first,  that  there  is  no  season  of  the  year  in 
which  vicious  allurements  are  so  active.  In  warm  weather 
places  of  dissipation  win  their  tamest  triumphs.  People  do 
not  feel  like  going,  in  the  hot  nights  of  summer,  among  the 
blazing  gas-lights,  or  breathing  the  fetid  air  of  assemblages. 
The  receipts  of  most  grog-shops  in  a  December  night  are 
three  times  what  they  are  in  any  night  in  July  or  August. 
I  doubt  not  there  are  larger  audiences  in  the  casinos  in  win- 
ten  than  in  the  summer  weather.  Iniquity  plies  a  more 
profitable  trade.  December,  January,  and  February  are 
harvest  months  for  the  devil.  The  play-bills  of  the  low  en- 
tertainments then  are  more  charming,  the  acting  is  more  ex- 
quisite, the  enthusiasm  of  the  spectators  more  bewitching. 
Many  a  young  man  who  makes  out  to  keep  right  the  rest  of 
the  year  capsizes  now.  When  he  came  to  town  in  the 
autumn  his  eye  was  bright,  his  cheek  rosy,  his  step  elastic ; 
but  before  spring,  as  you  pass  him  you  will  say  to  your 
friend,  "  What  is  the  matter  with  that  young  man?"  The 
fact  is,  that  one  winter  of  dissipation  has  done  the  work  of 
ruin. 

FATAL   PARTIES. 

This  is  the  season  for  parties,  and  if  they  are  of  the  right 
kind  our  social  nature  is  improved  and  our  spirits  are  cheered 


352  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

up.  But  many  of  them  arc  not  of  the  right  kind,  and  our 
young  people,  night  after  night,  are  kept  in  the  whirl  of 
unhealthy  excitement,  until  their  strength  fails,  and  their 
spirits  are  broken  down,  and  their  taste  for  ordinary  life  cor- 
rupted ;  and  by  the  time  the  spring  weather  comes  they  are 
in  the  doctor's  hands  or  sleeping  in  the  cemetery.  The 
certificate  of  their  death  is  made  out,  and  the  physician,  out 
of  regard  for  the  family,  calls  the  disease  by  some  Latin 
name,  when  the  truth  is  that  they  died  of  too  many  parties. 

SLAIN   BY   EVIL  HABITS. 

There  are  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  every  year 
coming  from  the  country  to  our  great  cities.  They  come 
with  brave  hearts  and  grand  expectations.  They  think 
they  will  be  Rufus  Choates  in  the  law,  or  Drapers  in  chem- 
istry, or  A.  T.  Stewarts  in  merchandise.  The  country  lads 
sit  down  in  the  village  grocery,  with  their  feet  on  the  iron 
rod  around  the  red-hot  stove,  in  the  evening,  talking  over 
the  prospects  of  the  young  man  who  has  gone  off  to  the 
city.  Two  or  three  of  them  think  that  perhaps  he  may  get 
along  very  well  and  succeed,  but  the  most  of  them  prophesy 
failure;  for  it  is  veiy  hard  to  think  that  those  whom  we 
knew  in  boyhood  will  ever  make  any  stir  in  the  world. 

But  our  young  man  has  a  fine  position  in  a  dry-goods 
store.  The  month  is  over.  He  gets  his  wages.  He  is  not 
accustomed  to  have  so  much  money  belonging  to  himself. 
He  is  a  little  excited,  and  does  not  exactly  know  what  to 
do  w^ith  it,  and  he  spends  it  in  some  places  where  he  ought 
not.  Soon  there  come  up  new  companions  and  acquaint- 
ances from  the  bar-rooms  and  the  saloons  of  the  city. 
Soon  that  young  man  begins  to  waver  in  the  battle  of 
temptation,  and  soon  his  soul  goes  down.  In  a  few  months, 
or  few  years,  he  has  fallen.  He  is  morally  dead.  He  is  a 
mere  corpse  of  what  he  once  was.  The  harpies  of  sin  snuff 
up  the  taint  and  come  on  the  field.  His  garments  gradually 
give  out.  He  has  pawned  his  watch.  His  health  is  failing 
him.      His  credit  perishes.     He   is   too  poor  to   stay  in  the 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  353 

city,  and  he  is  too  poor  to  pay  his  way  home  to  the  country. 
Down !  down !  Why  do  the  low  fellows  of  the  city  now 
stick  to  him  so  closely?  Is  it  to  help  him  back  to  a  moral 
and  spiritual  life?  Oh,  no  !  I  will  tell  you  why  they  stay; 
they  are  the  Philistines  stripping  the  slain. 

TRY,   TRY   again! 

With  an  insight  into  human  nature  such  as  no  other  man 
ever  reached,  Solomon  sketches  the  mental  operations  of 
one  who,  having  stepped  aside  from  the  path  of  rectitude, 
desires  to  return.  With  a  wish  for  something  better  he 
said,  "  When  shall  I  awake  ?  When  shall  I  come  out  of 
this  horrid  nightmare  of  iniquity?"  But,  seized  upon  by 
uneradicated  habit,  and  forced  down  hill  by  his  passions,  he 
cries  out,  "  I  will  seek  it  yet  again.     I  will  try  it  once  more." 

Our  libraries  are  adorned  with  an  elegant  literature  ad- 
dressed to  young  men,  pointing  out  to  them  all  the  dangers 
and  perils  of  life — complete  maps  of  the  voyage,  showing 
all  the  rocks,  the  quicksands,  the  shoals.  But  suppose  a 
man  has  already  made  shipwreck;  suppose  he  is  already  off 
the  track ;  suppose  he  has  already  gone  astray,  how  is  he  to 
get  back?  That  is  a  field  comparatively  untouched.  I 
propose  to  address  myself  to  such.  There  are  those  in  this 
audience  who,  with  every  passion  of  their  agonized  soul,  are 
ready  to  hear  such  a  discussion.  They  compare  themselves 
with  what  they  were  ten  years  ago,  and  cry  out  from  the 
bondage  in  which  they  are  incarcerated.  Now,  if  there  be 
any  in  this  house,  here  with  an  earnest  purpose,  yet  feel- 
ing they  are  beyond  the  pale  of  Christian  sympathy,  and 
that  the  sermon  can  hardly  be  expected  to  address  them, 
then,  at  this  moment,  I  give  them  my  right  hand,  and  call 
them  brother.  Look  up.  There  is  glorious  and  triumph- 
ant hope  for  you  yet.  I  sound  the  trumpet  of  Gospel  de- 
liverance. The  Church  is  ready  to  spread  a  banquet  at 
your  return,  and  the  hierarchs  of  heaven  will  fall  into  line  of 
bannered  procession  at  the  news  of  your  emancipation.  So 
far  as  God  may  help  me,  I    propose  to  show  what  are   the 


354 


TRUMPET  PEALS. 


obstacles    of  your    return,  and    then  how  you  are  to  sur- 
mount those  obstacles. 


MORAL  GRAVITATION. 

The  first  difficulty  in  the  way  of  your  return  is  the  force 
of  moral  gravitation.  Just  as  there  is  a  natural  law  which 
brings  down  to  the  earth  anything  you  throw  into  the  air, 
so  there  is  a  corresponding  moral  gravitation.  In  other 
words,  it  is  easier  to  go  down  than  it  is  to  go  up ;  it  is 
easier  to  do  wrong  than  it  is  to  do  right.  Call  to  mind  the 
comrades  of  your  boyhood  days — some  of  them  good,  some 
of  them  bad — which  most  affected  you  ?  Call  to  mind  the 
anecdotes  that  you  have  heard  in  the  last  five  or  ten  years — 
some  of  them  are  pure  and  some  of  them  impure.  Which 
the  more  easily  sticks  to  your  memory?  During  the  years 
of  your  life  you  have  formed  certain  courses  of  conduct- 
some  of  them  good,  some  of  them  bad.  To  which  st}'lc  of 
habit  did  you  the  more  easily  yield?  Ah,  my  friends,  \\e 
have  to  take  but  a  moment  of  self-inspection  to  find  out  that 
there  is  in  all  our  souls  a  force  of  moral  gravitation  !  But 
that  gravitation  may  be  resisted.  Just  as  you  may  pick  up 
from  the  earth  something  and  hold  it  in  your  hand  toward 
heaven,  just  so,  by  the  power  of  God's  grace,  a  soul  fallen 
may  be  lifted  toward  peace,  toward  pardon,  toward  heaven. 
Force  of  moral  gravitation  in  every  one  of  us,  but  power  in 
God's  erace  to  overcome  that  force  of  moral  gravitation. 


EVIL   HABITS   HARD   TO   GIVE  UP. 

I  know  there  are  those  who  say  it  is  very  easy  for  them 
to  give  up  evil  habits.  I  do  not  believe  them.  Here  is  a 
man  given  to  intoxication.  He  knows  it  is  disgracing  his 
family,  destroying  his  property,  ruining  him,  body,  mind,  and 
soul.  If  that  man,  being  an  intelligent  man,  and  loving  his 
family,  could  easily  give  up  that  habit,  would  he  not  do  so? 
The  fact  that  he  does  not  give  it  up  proves  it  is  hard  to 
give  it  up. 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  355 

Yet  the  trouble  is  that  many  make  a  disgraceful  surren- 
der. As  we  all  know,  there  is  honorable  and  dignified  surren- 
der, as  when  a  small  host  yields  to  superior  numbers.  It  is 
no  humiliation  for  a  thousand  men  to  yield  to  ten  thousand. 
It  is  better  than  to  keep  on  when  there  can  be  no  result  ex- 
cept that  of  massacre.  But  those  who  surrender  to  sin 
make  a  surrender  when  on  their  side  they  have  enough  re- 
serve forces  to  rout  all  the  armies  of  Perdition,  whether  led 
on  by  what  a  demonographer  calls  Belial,  or  Beelzebub,  or 
Apollyon,  or  Abaddon,  or  Ariel.  At  the  time  of  it  there 
was  much  talk  about  the  abdication  of  Alexander  of  Bulgaria, 
but  what  a  paltry  throne  was  that  from  which  the  unhappy 
king  descended,  compared  with  the  abdication  of  that  young 
mall,  or  middle-aged  man,  or  old  man,  who  quits  the  throne 
of  his  opportunity  and  turns  his  back  upon  a  heavenly 
throne,  and  tramps  off  into  ignominy  and  everlasting  exile ! 
That  is  an  abdication  enough  to  shake  a  universe.  In 
Persia  they  will  not  have  a  blind  man  on  the  throne,  and 
when  a  reigning  monarch  is  jealous  of  some  ambitious  rela- 
tive, he  has  his  eyes  extinguished  so  that  he  cannot  possibly 
ever  come  to  crowning.  And  that  suggests  the  difference 
between  the  way  sin  and  divine  grace  takes  hold  of  a  man. 
The  former  blinds  him  so  he  may  never  reach  a  thtone,  while 
the  latter  illumines  the  blind  that  he  may  take  coronation. 

EASY   TO    GO   DOWN   STREAM. 

It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  sail  down  stream,  the  tide 
carrying  you  with  great  force;  but  suppose  you  turn  the  boat 
up  stream,  is  it  so  easy  then  to  row  it?  As  long  as  we  yield 
to  the  evil  inclinations  in  our  hearts,  and  our  bad  habits,  we 
are  sailing  down  stream;  but  the  moment  we  try  to  turn,  we 
put  our  boat  in  the  rapids  just  above  Niagara,  and  try  to 
row  upstream.  Take  a  man  given  to  the  habit  of  using  to- 
baceo,  as  most  of  you  do,  and  let  him  resolve  to  stop,  and  he 
finds  it  very  difficult.  Twenty  one  years  ago  I  quitted  that 
habit,  and  I  would  as  soon  dare  to  put  my  right  hand  in  the 
fire  as  once  to  indulge  in  it.     Why  ?     Because  it  was  such  a 


356  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

terrific  struggle  to  get  over  it.  Now,  let  a  man  be  advised 
by  his  physician  to  give  up  the  use  of  tobacco.  He  goes 
around  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  himself.  He  cannot 
add  up  a  line  of  figures.  He  cannot  sleep  nights.  It  seems 
as  if  the  world  had  turned  upside  down.  He  feelshisbusiness 
is  going  to  ruin.  Where  he  was  kind  and  obliging  he  is 
scolding  and  fretful.  The  composure  that  characterized  him 
has  given  Avay  to  a  fretful  restlessness,  and  he  has  become  a 
complete  fidget.  What  power  is  it  that  has  rolled  a  wave  of 
woe  over  the  earth  and  shaken  a  portent  in  the  heavens  ? 
He  has  tried  to  stop  smoking  or  chewing  !  After  a  while  he 
says,  "  I  am  going  to  do  as  I  please.  The  doctor  doesn't 
understand  my  case.  I'm  going  back  to  my  old  habit." 
And  he  returns.  Everything  assumes  its  usual  composure. 
His  business  seems  to  brighten.  The  world  becomes  an 
attractive  place  to  live  in.  His  children,  seeing  the  difference, 
hail  the  return  of  their  father's  genial  disposition.  What 
wave  of  color  has  dashed  blue  into  the  sky,  and  greenness 
into  the  mountain  foliage,  and  the  glow  of  sapphire  into  the 
sunset  ?  What  enchantment  has  lifted  a  world  of  beauty 
and  joy  on  his  soul  ?     He  has  gone  back  to  tobacco  ! 

O !  the  fact  is,  as  we  all  know  in  our  own  experience, 
that  habit  is  a  taskmaster ;  as  long  as  we  obey  it,  it  does  not 
chastise  us  ;  but  let  us  resist  and  we  find  we  are  to  be  lashed 
with  scorpion-whips  and  bound  \\'ith  ship-cable,  and  thrown 
into  the  track  of  bone-breaking  Juggernauts!  During  the 
war  of  i8i2  there  was  a  ship  set  on  fire  just  above  Niagara 
Falls,  and  then,  cut  loose  from  its  moorings,  it  came  on 
down  through  the  night  and  tossed  over  the  Falls.  It  was 
said  to  have  been  a  scene  brilliant  beyond  all  description. 
Well,  there  are  thousands  of  men  on  fire  of  evil  habit,  coming 
down  through  the  rapids  and  through  the  awful  night  of 
temptation  toward  the  eternal  plunge.  Oh  !  how  hard  it  is 
to  arrest  them.     God  only  can  arrest  them. 

Suppose  a  man  after  five,  or  ten,  or  twenty  years  of  evil- 
doing,  resolves  to  do  right?  Why,  all  the  forces  of  darkness 
are  allied  against  him.  He  cannot  sleep  nights.  He  gets 
down  on  his  knees  in  tlie  niithiight  and  cries,  "  God  help  me  !" 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  357 

He  bites  his  lip.  He  grinds  his  teeth.  He  clenches  his  fist 
in  a  determination  to  keep  his  purpose.  He  dare  not  look 
at  the  bottles  in  the  window  of  a  wine-store.  It  was  one 
long,  bitter,  exhaustive,  hand-to-hand  fight  with  inflamed, 
tantalizing,  and  merciless  habit. 

When  he  thinks  he  is  entirely  free,  the  old  inclinations 
pounce  upon  him  like  a  pack  of  hounds  with  their  muzzles 
tearing  away  at  the  flanks  of  one  poor  reindeer.  In  Paris 
there  is  a  sculptured  representation  of  Bacchus,  the  god  of 
revelry.  He  is  riding  on  a  panther  at  full  leap.  Oh,  how 
suggestive !  Let  every  one  who  is  speeding  on  bad  ways 
understand  he  is  not  riding  a  docile  and  well-broken  steed, 
but  he  is  riding  a  monster,  wild  and  bloodthirsty,  going  at  a 
death-leap. 

How  many  there  are  who  resolve  on  a  better  life  and  say, 
"When  shall  I  awake?"  but,  seized  on  by  their  old  habits, 
cry,  "  I  will  try  it  once  more ;  I  will  seek  it  yet  again  !" 
Years  ago  there  were  some  Princeton  students  who  were 
skating,  and  the  ice  was  very  thin,  and  some  one  warned  the 
company  back  from  the  air-hole,  and  finally  warned  them 
entirely  to  leave  the  place.  But  one  young  man  with  bra- 
vado, after  all  the  rest  had  stopped,  cried  out,  "  One  round 
more  !"  He  swept  around  and  went  down,  and  was  brought 
out  a  corpse.  My  friends,  there  are  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  men  losing  their  souls  in  that  way.  It  is  the 
"  one  round  more." 


FOUR   PLAIN   QUESTIONS. 

Are  your  habits  as  good  as  when  you  left  your  father's 
house  ?  Have  you  a  pool  ticket  in  your  pocket  ?  Have  you 
a  fraudulent  document?  Have  you  been  experimenting  to 
see  how  accurate  an  imitation  you  could  make  of  your  em- 
ployer's signature  ?  O  !  you  have  good  blood.  Remember 
your  father's  prayers.  Remember  your  mother's  example. 
Turn  not  in  an  evil  w^ay.  Have  you  been  going  astray? 
Come  back.     Have  you  ventured  out  too  far? 

Why,  my  brother,  there   have   been   too   many  prayers 


358  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

offered  for  you  to  have  you  go  overboard.  And  there  are 
those  venturing  down  into  sin,  and  my  heart  aches  to  call 
them  back. 

At  Brighton  Beach  or  Long  Branch  you  have  seen  men 
go  down  into  the  surf  to  bathe,  and  they  waded  out  farther 
and  farther,  and  you  got  anxious  about  them.  You  said, 
"  I  wonder  if  they  can  swim?"  And  then  you  stood  and 
shouted,  "  Come  back  !  come  back  !  You  will  be  lost  !  you  will 
be  lost !"  They  waved  their  hands  back,  saying,  "  No  danger." 
They  kept  on  wading  deeper  down  and  farther  out  from 
shore,  until  after  a  while  a  great  wave  with  a  strong  under- 
tow took  them  out,  and  their  corpses  the  next  day  were 
dashed  on  the  beach.  So  I  see  men  wading  into  sin  farther 
and  farther — farther  from  God — and  I  call  to  them,  "  Come 
back  !  come  back  !  You  will  be  lost !  you  will  be  lost !"  They 
wave  their  hands  back,  saying,  "  No  danger,  no  danger." 
Deeper  down  and  deeper  down,  until  after  a  while  a  wave 
sweeps  them  out  and  sweeps  them  off  forever.  O,  come 
back!     The  one  farthest  away  may  come. 

I  have  shown  you  obstacles  because  I  want  you  to  under- 
stand I  know  all  the  difficulties  in  the  way;  but  I  am  now  to 
tell  you  how  Hannibal  may  scale  the  Alps,  and  how  the 
shackles  may  be  unrivetcd,  and  how  the  paths  of  virtue  for- 
saken may  be  regained.  First  of  all,  my  brother,  throw 
yourself  on  God.  Go  to  Him  frankly  and  earnestly,  and  tell 
Him  these  habits  you  have,  and  ask  Him  if  there  is  any  help 
in  all  the  resources  of  omnipotent  love,  to  give  it  to  you.  Do 
not  go  with  a  long  rigmarole  people  call  prayer,  made  up  of 
"  ohs"  and  "  ahs"  and  "forever  and  forever  amens'"  Go  to 
God  and  cry  for  help !  help!  help!  and  if  }'ou  cannot  cry 
for  help  just  look  and  live.  I  remember  in  the  war  I  was  at 
Antietam,  and  I  went  into  the  hospitals  after  the  battle,  and  I 
said  to  a  man,  "  Where  are  you  hurt  ?"  He  made  no  answer, 
but  held  up  his  arm,  swollen  and  splintered.  I  saw  where 
he  was  hurt.  The  simple  fact  is,  when  a  man  has  a  wounded 
soul,  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  hold  it  up  before  a  sympathetic 
Lord  and  get  it  healed.  It  does  not  take  any  long  praj-er. 
Just  hold  up  the  wound.      Oh,  it   is  n(j  small   thing  when   a 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  359 

man  is  nervous  and  weak  and  exhausted,  coming  from  his 
evil  ways,  to  feel  that  God  puts  two  omnipotent  arms  around 
about  him  and  says,  "  Young  man,  I  will  stand  by  you  !  The 
mountains  may  depart  and  the  hills  be  removed,  but  I  will 
never  fail  you."  And  then,  as  the  soul  thinks  the  news  is 
too  good  to  be  true,  and  cannot  believe  it,  and  looks  up  in 
God's  face,  God  lifts  His  right  hand  and  takes  an  oath,  an 
afifidavit,  saying,  "  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  have  no 
pleasure  in  the  death  of  him  that  dieth." 

IRRELIGION   A   SLAUGHTERER  !  !  ! 

I  think  m.any  young  men  are  slaughtered'  through  irreli- 
gion.  •  Take  away  a  young  man's  religion,  and  you  make 
him  the  prey  of  evil.  We  all  know  that  the  Bible  is  the  only 
perfect  system  of  morals.  Now,  if  you  want  to  destroy  the 
young  man's  morals,  take  his  Bible  away  ?  How  will  you  do 
that  ?  Well,  you  will  caricature  his  reverence  for  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  you  will  take  all  those  incidents  of  the  Bible  which 
can  be  made  mirth  of — Jonah's  whale,  Samson's  foxes, 
Adam's  rib — then  you  will  caricature  eccentric  Christians  or 
inconsistent  Christians  ;  then  you  will  pass  off  as  your  own 
all  those  hackneyed  arguments  against  Christianity,  which 
are  as  old  as  Tom  Paine,  as  old  as  Voltaire,  as  old  as  sin. 
Now  you  have  captured  his  Bible,  and  you  have  taken  his 
strongest  fortress  ;  the  way  is  comparatively  clear,  and  all 
the  gates  of  his  soul  are  set  open  in  invitation  to  the  sins  of 
earth  and  the  sorrows  of  death,  that  they  may  come  in  and . 
drive  the  stake  for  their  encampment. 

A  steamer  fifteen  hundred  miles  from  shore  with  broken 
rudder  and  lost  compass,  and  hull  leaking  fifty  gallons  the 
hour,  is  better  off  than  a  young  man  when  you  have  robbed 
him  of  his  Bible.  Have  you  ever  noticed  how  despicably 
mean  it  is  to  take  away  the  world's  Bible  without  proposing 
a  substitute?  It  is  meaner  than  to  come  to  a  sick  man,  and 
steal  his  medicine  ;  meaner  than  to  come  to  a  cripple  and 
steal  his  crutch  ;  meaner  than  to  come  to  a  pauper  and  steal 
his  crust ;  meaner  than  to  come  to  a  poor  man  and  burn  his 


360  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

house.  It  is  the  worst  of  all  larcenies  to  steal  the  Bible, 
which  has  been  the  crutch  and  medicine  and  food  and  eternal 
home  to  so  many.  Slaughter  a  young  man's  faith  in  God, 
and  there  is  not  much  left  to  slaughter. 

Now,  ivJuit  has  become  of  the  slaughtered?  Well,  some  of 
them  are  in  their  father's  or  mother's  house,  broken  down  in 
health,  waiting  to  die ;  others  are  in  the  hospital  ;  others  are 
in  Greenwood,  or,  rather,  their  bodies  are,  for  their  souls 
have  gone  on  to  retribution.  Not  much  prospect  for  a  young 
man  who  started  in  life  with  good  health,  and  good  education, 
and  a  Christian  example  set  him,  and  opportunity  of  useful- 
ness, who  gathered  all  his  treasures  and  put  them  in  one 
box,  and  dropped  it  into  the  sea. 

Now%  how  is  this  wholesale  slaughter  to  be  stopped? 
There  is  no  one  but  is  interested  in  that  question.  Young 
man,  arm  yourself  !  The  object  of  my  sermon  is  to  put  a 
w'eapon  in  each  of  your  hands  for  your  own  defence.  Wait 
not  for  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  to  protect  you, 
or  churches  to  protect  you.     Appeal  to  God  for  help. 

There  is  no  class  of  persons  that  so  stir  my  sympathies 
as  young  men  in  great  cities.  Not  quite  enough  salary  to 
live  on,  and  all  the  temptations  that  come  from  that  deficit. 
Invited  on  all  hands  to  drink,  and  their  exhausted  nervous 
system  seeming  to  demand  stimulants.  Their  religion  cari- 
catured by  most  of  the  clerks  in  the  store  and  most  of  the 
operatives  in  the  factory.  The  rapids  of  temptation  and 
death  rushing  against  that  young  man  forty  miles  the  hour, 
and  he  in  a  frail  boat  headed  up  stream,  with  nothing  but 
a  broken  oar  to  work  with.  Unless  Almightj-  God  help  him 
he  will  go  under.  Ah  !  do  not  depend  upon  human  resolu- 
tion, which  may  be  dissolved  in  the  foam  of  the  wine-cup,  or 
may  be  blown  out  with  the  first  gust  of  temptation.  Here 
is  the  helmet,  the  sword  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty.  Clothe 
yourself  in  that  panoply,  and  you  shall  not  be  put  to  con- 
fusion. Sin  pays  well  neither  in  this  world  nor  the  next,  but 
right-thinking  and  right-believing  and  acting  will  take  you 
in  safety  through  this  life,  and  in  transport  through  the  next. 

Have  a  room  somewhere  that   you  can  call  }-our  own. 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  36 1 

Whether  it  be  the  back  parlor  of  a  fashionable  boarding- 
house  or  a  room  in  the  fourth  story  of  a  cheap  lodging,  I  care 
not.  Only  have  that  one  room  your  fortress.  Let  not  the 
dissipator  or  unclean  step  over  the  threshold.  If  they  come 
up  the  long  flight  of  stairs  and  knock  at  the  door,  meet  them 
face  to  face,  and  kindly  yet  firmly  refuse  them  admittance. 
Have  a  few  family  portraits  on  the  wall,  if  you  brought  them 
with  you  from  your  country  home.  Have  a  Bible  on  the 
stand.  If  you  can  afford  it,  and  you  can  play  on  one,  have 
an  instrument  of  music — harp  or  flute  or  cornet  or  melodeon 
or  violin  or  piano.  Every  morning,  before  you  leave  that 
room,  pray.  Every  night,  after  you  come  home  in  that  room, 
pray.  Make  that  room  your  Gibraltar,  your  Sebastopol,  your 
Mount  Zion.  Let  no  bad  book  or  newspaper  come  into  that 
room  any  more  than  you  would  allow  a  cobra  to  coil  on  your 
table. 

Then  look  to  God.  Nobody  else  will  take  care  of  you. 
Your  help  will  not  come  up  two  or  three  or  four  flights  of 
stairs  ;  your  help  will  come  through  the  roof,  down  from 
heaven,  from  that  God  who  in  the  six  thousand  years  of  the 
world's  history  never  betrayed  a  young  man  who  tried  to  be 
good  and  Christian. 

"  O  !"  you  say,  "you  don't  know  where  I  came  from  ;  you 
don't  know  what  my  history  has  been  ;  you  don't  know 
what  iniquity  I  have  plotted  ;  I  have  gone  through  the 
whole  catalogue  of  sin."  My  brother,  I  do  not  know  the 
story,  but  I  tell  you  this  :  the  door  of  mercy  is  wide  open. 
"  Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet  they  shall  be  as  snow  ; 
though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool." 
Though  you  have  been  polluted  with  the  worst  of  crimes, 
though  you  have  been  smitten  with  the  worst  of  leprosies, 
though  you  have  been  fired  with  all  evil  passions,  this  moment 
on  5'our  brow,  hot  with  iniquitous  indulgences,  may  be  set 
the  flashing  coronet  of  a  Saviour's  forgiveness. 

MERCY   FOR  ALL. 

"  I  am  a  gambler,"  says  one  man.  There  is  mercy  for}'ou. 
*'  I  am  a  libertine,"  sa}'s  another.     There  is  mercy  for  you. 


362  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

"  I  have  plunged  into  every  abomination."  Mercy  for  you. 
The  door  of  grace  does  not  stand  ajar  to-night,  nor  half 
swung  around  on  the  hinges.  It  is  wide,  wide  open  ;  and 
there  is  nothing  in  the  Bible,  or  in  Christ,  or  God,  or  earth, 
or  heaven,  or  hell,  to  keep  you  out  of  the  door  of  safet}-,  if 
you  want  to  go  in.  Christ  has  borne  your  burdens,  fought 
your  battles,  suffered  for  your  sins.  The  debt  is  paid,  and 
the  receipt  is  handed  to  you,  written  in  the  blood  of  the  Son 
of  God — will  you  have  it  ?  Oh,  decide  the  matter  now ! 
Decide  it  here  !  Fling  your  exhausted  soul  down  at  the  feet 
of  an  all-compassionate,  all-sympathizing,  all-pitying,  all-par- 
doning Jesus.  The  laceration  on  His  brow,  the  gash  in  His 
side,  the  torn  muscles  and  nerves  of  His  feet  beg  you  to 
come. 

But  remember,  one  inch  outside  the  door  of  pardon  and 
you  are  in  as  much  peril  as  though  you  were  a  thousand 
miles  away. 

THE  WORST    MAY   HOPE. 

Blessed  be  God  for  such  a  Gospel  as  this  !  "  Cut  the 
slices  thin,"  said  the  wife  to  the  husband,  "  or  there  will  not 
be  enough  to  go  all  around  for  the  children  ;  cut  the  slices 
thin."  Blessed  be  God,  there  is  a  full  loaf  for  everyone  that 
wants  it ;  bread  enough  and  to  spare.  No  thin  slices  at  the 
Lord's  table.  I  remember  when  a  certain  hospital  in 
Philadelphia  was  opened  during  the  war,  a  telegram  came 
saying,  "  There  will  be  three  hundred  wounded  men  to- 
night, be  ready  to  take  care  of  them  ;"  and  from  my  church 
there  went  some  twenty  or  thirty  men  and  women  to  look 
after  these  poor  wounded  fellows.  As  they  came,  some 
from  one  part  of  the  land,  some  from  another,  no  one  asked 
whether  this  man  was  from  Oregon,  or  from  Massachusetts, 
or  from  Minnesota,  or  from  New  York.  There  was  a 
wounded  soldier,  and  the  only  question  was  how  to  take  off 
the  rags  most  gently,  and  put  on  the  bandage,  and  adminis- 
ter the  cordial.  And  when  a  soul  comes  to  God,  He  does 
not  ask  where  you  came  from   or  what  )'our.  ancestry  was. 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  363 

Healing  for  all  your  wounds.     Pardon   for  all  your  guilt. 
Comfort  for  all  your  troubles. 

If  you  do  not  know  how  to  come,  it  may  be  helpful  to 
seek  Christian  advice.  Every  Christian  man  is  bound  to 
help  you.  First  of  all,  seek  God  ;  then  seek  Christian  coun- 
sel. And,  if  you  want  to  get  back,  quit  all  your  bad  asso- 
ciations. What  chance  is  there  for  that  young  man  I  saw 
along  the  street,  four  or  five  young  men  with  him,  halting 
in  front  of  a  grog  shop,  urging  him  to  go  in,  he  resisting, 
violently  resisting,  until  after  a  while  they  forced  him  to  go 
in  ?  Give  up  your  bad  companions,  or  give  up  heaven.  It 
is  not  ten  bad  companions  that  destroy  a  man,  nor  five  bad 
companions,  nor  three  bad  companions,  but  one  ;  one  unholy 
intimacy  will  fill  your  soul  with  moral  distemper.  In  all  the 
ages  of  the  Church  there  has  not  been  an  instance  where  a 
man  kept  one  evil  associate  and  was  reformed.  Among  the 
fourteen  hundred  million  of  the  race  not  one  instance.  Go 
home  to-day,  open  your  desk,  take  out  letter  paper,  stamp, 
and  envelope,  and  then  write  a  letter  something  like  this  : 

"  My  old  companions  :  I  start  this  day  for  heaven.  Until  I  am  per- 
suaded you  will  join  me  in  this,  farewell." 

Then  sign  your  name,  and  send  the  letter  by  the  first 
post.  Then  gather  up  the  energies  of  body,  mind,  and 
soul,  and,  appealing  to  God  for  success,  declare  this  day  ever- 
lasting war  against  all  drinking  habits,  all  gaming  practices, 
all  houses  of  sin.  Half-and-half  work  will  amount  to  noth- 
ing ;  it  must  be  a  Waterloo.  Shrink  back  now,  and  you  are 
lost.  Push  on  and  you  are  saved.  A  Spartan  general  fell 
at  the  very  moment  of  victory,  but  he  dipped  his  finger  in 
his  own  blood  and  wrote  on  a  rock  near  which  he  was  dying, 
"  Sparta  has  conquered  !"  Though  your  struggle  to  get  rid 
of  sin  may  seem  to  be  almost  a  death  struggle,  you  can  dip 
your  finger  in  your  own  blood  and  write  on  the  Rock  of 
Ages,  "Victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

GLORIOUS   NEWS. 
O   what  glorious  news   it  would    be    for  some  of  these 
young  men  to  send  home  to  tluir  parents  in  the  country! 


364  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

They  go  to  the  i:)ost-office  every  day  or  two  to  see  whether 
tliere  are  an}-  letters  from  you.  How  anxious  they  are  to 
hear.  You  miglit  send  them  for  a  hoHday  present  a  book 
from  one  of  our  best  publishing  houses,  or  a  complete  ward- 
robe from  the  importer's  palace,  it  would  not  please  them 
half  so  much  as  the  news  you  might  send  home  to-morrow 
that  you  had  given  your  heart  to  God.  I  know  how  it  is  in 
the  country.  The  night  comes  on.  The  cattle  stand  under 
the  rack  through  which  burst  the  trusses  of  hay.  The 
horses  just  having  frisked  up  from  the  meadow  at  the  night- 
fall stand  knee-deep  in  the  bright  straw  that  invites  them  to 
lie  down  and  rest.  The  perch  of  the  hovel  is  full  of  fowl, 
their  feet  warm  under  the  feathers.  In  the  old  farm-house 
at  night  no  candle  is  lighted,  for'the  flames  clap  their  hands 
about  the  great  back  log,  and  shake  the  shadow  of  the 
group  up  and  down  the  wall. 

Father  and  mother  sit  there  for  half  an  hour,  saying 
nothing.  I  wonder  what  they  arc  thinking  of.  After  awhile 
the  father  breaks  the  silence  and  says,  "  Well,  I  wonder 
where  our  boy  is  in  town  to-night  ?"  and  the  mother  an- 
swers, "  In  no  bad  place,  I  warrant  you  ;  we  always  could 
trust  him  when  he  was  home,  and  since  he  has  been  away 
there  have  been  so  many  prayers  offered  for  him,  we  can 
trust  him  still."  Then,  at  eight  o'clock — for  they  retire  early 
in  the  country — they  kneel  down  and  commend  you  to  that 
God  who  watches  in  country  and  in  town,  on  the  land  and 
on  the  sea. 

Some  one  said  to  a  Grecian  general,  "  What  was  the 
proudest  moment  in  your  life  ?"  He  thought  a  moment 
and  said,  "  The  proudest  moment  in  my  life  was  when  I 
sent  word  home  to  my  parents  that  I  had  gained  the  vic- 
tory." And  the  proudest  and  most  brilliant  moment  in 
your  life  will  be  the  moment  when  you  can  send  word  to 
your  parents  that  }-ou  have  concjuered  your  evil  habits  by 
the  grace  of  God,  and  become  eternal  victor.  Oh,  despise 
not  parental  anxiety  ! 

The  time  will  come  when  you  will  have  neither  father 
nor  mother,  and  )-(^u   will  go  around  the  place  where  they 


TRAPS  FOR    YOUNG  MEN.  365 

used  to  watch  you,  and  find  them  gone  from  the  house,  and 
gone  from  the  field,  and  gone  from  the  neighborhood.  Cry 
as  loud  for  forgiveness  as  you  may  over  the  mound  in  the 
churchyard,  they  will  not  answer. 

And  then  you  will  take  out  the  white  lock  of  hair  that 
was  cut  from  your  mother's  brow  just  before  they  buried  her, 
and  you  will  take  the  cane  with  which  your  father  used  to 
walk,  and  you  will  think  and  think  and  wish  that  you  had 
done  just  as  they  wanted  you  to,  and  would  give  the  world 
if  you  had  never  thrust  a  pang  through  their  dear  old  hearts 
God  pity  the  young  man  who  has  brought  disgrace  on  his 
father's  name  !  God  pity  the  young  man  tvho  has  broken  his 
mother  s  heart!  Belter  if  he  had  never  been  born — better  if 
in  the  first  hour  of  his  life,  instead  of  being  laid  against  the 
warm  bosom  of  maternal  tenderness,  he  had  been  cofifined 
and  sepulchred.  There  is  no  balm  powerful  enough  to  heal 
the  heart  of  one  who  has  brought  parents  to  a  sorrowful 
grave,  and  who  wanders  about  through  the  dismal  cemetery, 
rending  the  hair,  and  wringing  the  hands,  and  crying, 
"Mother!  Mother!"  O  that  by  all  the  memories  of  tlic 
past,  and  by  all  the  hopes  of  the  future,  you  would  yield 
your  heart  to  God  !  May  your  father's  God  and  your 
mother's  God  be  your  God  forever ! 


CHAPTER    XIV. 
Defences  of  Young  Men. 

"And  the  Lord  opened  the  eyes  of  the  young  man." — II.  Kings  6  :  17. 

One  morning  in  Dothan,  a  young  theological  student 
was  scared  by  finding  himself  and  Elisha  the  prophet,  upon 
Avhom  he  waited,  surrounded  by  a  whole  army  of  enemies. 
But  venerable  EHsha  was  not  scared  at  all,  because  he  saw 
the  mountains  full  of  defence  for  him,  in  chariots  made  out 
of  fire,  wheels  of  fire,  dash-board  of  fire,  and  cushion  of  fire, 
drawn  by  horses  with  nostrils  of  fire,  and  mane  of  fire,  and 
haunches  of  fire,  and  hoofs  of  fire — a  supernatural  appear- 
ance that  could  not  be  seen  with  the  natural  e}^e.  So  the 
old  minister  prayed  that  the  young  minister  might  see  them 
also,  and  the  prayer  was  answered,  and  the  Lord  opened  the 
eyes  of  the  young  man,  and  he  also  saw  the  fiery  procession, 
looking  somewhat,  I  suppose,  like  the  Adirondacks  or  the 
Allcghanies  in  their  autumnal  resplendence. 

Many  young  men,  standing  among  the  most  tremendous 
realities,  have  their  eyes  half  shut  or  entirely  closed.  May 
God  grant  that  the  truth  may  open  wide  your  eyes  to  your 
safety,  your  opportunity  and  your  destiny. 

A  GOOD   HOME. 

A  mighty  defence  for  a  young  man  is  a  good  Jiomc.  Some 
of  you  may  look  back  with  tender  satisfaction  to  your  earl)^ 
home.  It  may  have  been  rude  and  rustic,  hidden  among 
the  hills,  and  architect  or  upholsterer  may  never  have  planned 
or  adorned  it.  But  all  the  fresco  on  princel}-  walls  never 
looked  so  enticing  to  you  as  those  rough-hewn  rafters.  You 
can  think  of  no  park  or  arbor  of  trees  planted  on  fashionable 
country-seat  so  attractive  as  the  plain  brook  that  ran  in 
front   of    the  old   farm-house  and  sung  under  the   weeping 

366 


DEFENCES  OF    YOUNG  MEN.  367 

willows.  No  barred  gateway,  adorned  with  statue  of  bronze, 
and  swung  open  by  obsequious  porter  in  full  dress,  has  half 
the  glory  of  the  swing  gate.  Many  of  you  have  a  second 
dwelling-place,  your  adopted  home,  that  also  is  sacred  for- 
ever. There  you  built  the  first  family  altar.  There  your 
children  were  born.  All  those  trees  you  planted.  That 
room  is  solemn,  because  once  in  it,  over  the  hot  pillow, 
flapped  the  wing  of  death.  Under  that  roof  you  expect 
when  your  work  is  done,  to  lie  down  and  die.  You  try  with 
many  words  to  tell  the  excellency  of  the  place,  but  you  fail. 
There  is  only  one  word  in  the  language  that  can  describe 
your  meaning.  It  is  home.  That  young  man  is  compara- 
tively safe  who  goes  out  into  the  world  with  a  charm  like 
this  upon  him.  The  memory  of  parental  solicitude,  watch- 
ing, planning  and  praying,  will  be  to  him  a  shield  and  a 
shelter.  I  never  knew  a  man  faithful  both  to  his  early  and 
adopted  home,  who  at  the  same  time  was  given  over  to  any 
gross  form  of  dissipation  or  wickedness.  He  who  seeks  his 
enjoyment  chiefly  from  outside  association,  rather  than  from 
the  more  quiet  and  unprcsuming  pleasures  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  may  be  suspected  to  be  on  the  broad  road  to  ruin. 
Absalom  despised  his  father's  house,  and  you  know  his  his- 
tory of  sin  and  his  death  of  shame.  If  you  seem  unnecessarily 
isolated  from  your  kindred  and  former  associates,  is  there 
not  some  room  that  you  can  call  your  own?  Into  it  gather 
books  and  pictures,  and  a  harp.  Have  a  portrait  over  the 
mantel.  Make  ungodly  mirth  stand  back  from  the  threshold. 
Consecrate  some  spot  with  the  habit  of  prayer.  By  the 
memory  of  other  days,  a  father's  counsel,  and  a  mother's 
love,  and  a  sister's  confidence,  call  it  home. 

INDUSTRIOUS   HABITS. 

Many  young  men,  in  starting  upon  life  in  this  age,  ex- 
pect to  make  their  way  through  the  world  by  the  use  of 
their  wits  rather  than  the  toil  of  their  hands.  A  boy  now 
goes  to  the  city  and  fails  twice  before  he  is  as  old  as  his 
father  was  when  he  first  saw  the  spires  of  the  great  town. 


36S  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Sitting  in  some  office,  rented  at  a  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
he  is  waiting  for  the  bank  to  declare  its  dividend,  or  goes 
into  the  market  expecting  before  night  to  be  made  rich  by 
the  rusliing  up  of  the  stocks.  But  luck  seemed  so  dull  he 
resolved  on  some  other  tack.  Perhaps  ho  borrowed  from 
his  employer's  mone)'-drawer  and  forgets  to  put  it  back,  or 
for  merely  the  purpose  of  improving  his  penmanship  makes 
a  copy-plate  of  a  merchant's  signature.  Never  mind,  all  is 
right  in  trade.  In  some  dark  night  there  may  come  in  his 
dreams  a  vision  of  Blackwell's  Island,  or  of  Sing  Sing,  but  it 
soon  vanishes.  In  a  short  time  he  will  be  ready  to  retire 
from  the  busy  world,  and  amid  his  flocks  and  herds  culture 
the  domestic  virtues.  Then  those  young  men  who  once  were 
his  schoolmates,  and  knew  no  better  than  to  engage  in 
honest  work,  will  come  with  their  ox-teams  to  draw  him 
logs,  and  with  their  hard  hands  help  heave  up  his  castle. 
This  is  no  fancy  picture.  It  is  every-day  life.  I  should  not 
wonder  if  there  were  some  rotten  beams  in  that  beautiful 
palace.  I  should  not  wonder  if  dire  sicknesses  should  smite 
through  the  young  man,  or  if  God  should  pour  into  his  cup 
of  life  a  draught  that  would  thrill  him  with  unbearable 
agony.  I  should  not  wonder  if  his  children  should  become 
to  him  a  living  curse,  making  his  home  a  pest  and  a  disgrace. 
I  should  not  wonder  if  he  goes  to  a  miserable  grave,  and  be- 
yond it  into  the  gnashing  of  teeth.  The  way  of  the  ungodly 
shall  perish. 

My  young  friends,  there  is  no  way  to  genuine  success, 
except  through  toil  either  of  the  head  or  hand.  At  the 
battle  of  Crecy,  in  1346,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  finding  himself 
heavily  pressed  by  the  enemy,  sent  word  to  his  father  for 
help.  The  father,  watching  the  battle  from  a  wind-mill,  and 
seeing  that  his  son  was  not  wounded  and  could  gain  the  day 
if  he  would,  sent  word  :  "  No,  I  will  not  come.  Let  the  boy 
win  his  spurs,  for,  if  God  will,  I  desire  that  this  day  be  his 
with  all  its  honors."  Young  man,  fight  your  own  battle,  all 
through,  and  you  shall  have  the  victor}'.  Oh,  it  is  a  battle 
worth  fighting.  Two  monarchs  of  old  fought  a  duel, 
Charles  V.   and   Francis,    and    the  stakes    were    kingdoms. 


DEFENCES  OF    YOUNG  MEN.  369 

Milan  and  Burgundy.  You  fight  with  sin,  and  the  stake  is 
heaven  or  hell. 

Do  not  get  the  fatal  idea  that  you  are  a  genius,  and  that, 
therefore,  there  is  no  need  of  close  application.  It  is  here 
where  multitudes  fail.  I  had  rather  be  an  ox  than  an  eaele  ; 
plain,  and  plodding  and  useful,  rather  than  high  flying  and 
good  for  nothing  but  to  pick  out  the  eyes  of  carcases. 
Extraordinary  capacity  loitJioiit  zvork  is  extraordinary  failure. 
There  is  no  hope  for  that  person  who  begins  life  resolved  to 
live  by  his  wits,  for  the  probability  is  that  he  has  not  any. 
It  was  not  safe  for  Adam,  even  in  his  unfallen  state,  to  have 
nothing  to  do,  and,  therefore,  God  commanded  him  to  be  a 
farmer  and  horticulturist.  He  was  to  dress  the  garden  and 
keep  it,  and  had  he  and  his  wife  obeyed  the  divine  injunc- 
tion and  been  at  work,  they  would  not  have  been  sauntering 
under  the  trees  and  hankering  after  that  fruit  which  degtroyed 
them  and  their  posterity  ;  proof  positive  for  all  ages  to  come 
that  those  who  do  not  attend  to  their  business  are  sure  to 
get  into  mischief. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  prodigal  in  Scripture  would  ever 
have  been  reclaimed  had  he  not  given  up  his  idle  habits,  and 
gone  to  feeding  swine  for  a  living.  "  Go  to  the  ant,  thou 
sluggard,  consider  her  ways  and  be  wise  ;  which  having  no 
guide,  overseer,  or  ruler,  provideth  her  meat  in  the  summer 
and  gathereth  her  food  in  the  harvest."  The  devil  does  not 
so  often  attack  the  man  who  is  busy  with  the  pen,  and  the 
book,  and  the  trowel,  and  the  saw,  and  the  hammer.  He  is 
afraid  of  those  weapons.  But  woe  to  the  man  whom  this 
roaring  lion  meets  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 


DRUDGERY   NECESSARY. 

* 

Do  not  demand  that  your  toil  always  be  elegant,  and 
cleanly  and  refined.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  drudgery 
through  which  we  must  all  pass,  whatever  be  our  occupa- 
tion. You  know  how  men  are  sentenced  a  certain  number 
of  years  to  prison,  and  after  they  have  suffered  and  worked 
out  the  time,  then  they  are  allowed  to  go  free.     And  so  it  is 


370  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

with  all  of  us.  God  passed  on  us  the  sentence :  "  By  the 
sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  cat  bread."  We  must  en- 
dure our  time  of  drudgery,  and  then  after  a  while,  we  will 
be  allowed  to  go  into  comparative  liberty.  We  must  be 
willing  to  endure  the  sentence.  We  all  know  what  drudgery 
is  connected  with  the  beginning  of  any  trade  or  profession, 
but  this  does  not  continue  all  our  lives,  if  it  be  the  student's, 
or  the  merchant's,  or  the^mechanic's  life.  I  know  you  have, 
at  the  beginning,  many  a  hard  time,  but  after  a  while  these 
things  will  become  easy.  You  Vvill  be  your  own  master. 
God's  sentence  will  be  satisfied.  You  will  be  discharged 
from  prison. 

Bless  God  that  you  have  a  brain  to  think,  and  hands  to 
work,  and  feet  to  walk  with,  for  in  your  constant  activity, 
O  young  man,  is  one  of  your  strongest  defences.  Put  your 
trust  in  God  and  do  your  level  best.  That  child  had  it  right 
when  the  horses  ran  away  with  the  load  of  wood  and  he  sat 
on  it.  When  asked  if  he  was  frightened,  he  said :  "  No,  I 
prayed  to  God  and  Jiung  on  like  a  beaver y 

RESPECT   FOR   THE   SABBATH 

will  be  to  the  young  man  another  preservative  against  evil. 
God  has  thrust  into  the  toil  and  fatigue  of  life  a  recreative 
day,  when  the  soul  is  especially  to  be  fed.  It  is  no  new- 
fangled notion  of  a  wild-brained  reformer,  but  an  institution 
established  at  the  beginning.  God  has  made  natural  and 
moral  laws  so  harmonious  that  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul 
demands  this  institution.  Our  bodies  are  seven-day  clocks, 
that  must  be  wound  up  as  often  as  that,  or  they  will  run 
down.  Failure  must  come  sooner  or  later  to  the  man  who 
breaks  the  Sabbath.  Inspiration  has  called  it  the  Lord's 
Day,  and  he  who  devotes  it  to  the  world  is  guilty  of  robbery. 
God  will  not  let  the  sin  go  unpunished  either  in  this  world 
or  the  world  to  come. 

This  is  the  statement  of  a  man  who  had  broken  this  divine 
enactment:  "I  was  engaged  in  manufacturing  on  the  Lehigh 
River.     On   the  Sabbath  I  used  to   rest,  but  never  regarded 


DEFENCES  OF    YOUNG  MEN.  3/1 

God  in  it.  One  beautiful  Sabbath  when  the  noise  was  all 
hushed,  and  the  day  was  all  that  loveliness  could  make  it,  I 
sat  down  on  my  piazza,  and  went  to  work  inventing  a  new 
shuttle.  I  neither  stopped  to  eat  nor  drink  till  the  sun  went 
down.  By  that  time  I  had  the  invention  completed.  The 
next  morning  I  exhibited  it,  and  boasted  of  my  day's  work, 
and  was  applauded.  The  shuttle  was  tried  and  worked  well, 
but  that  Sabbath  Day's  work  cost  me  thirty  thousand  dol- 
lars. We  branched  out  and  enlarged,  and  the  curse  of  heaven 
was  upon  me  from  that  day  onward." 

While  the  Divine  frown  must  rest  upon  him  who  tramples 
upon  this  statute,  God's  special  favor  will  be  upon  that  young 
man  who  scrupulously  observes  it.  This  day  properly  o«b- 
served,  will  throw  a  hallowed  influence  over  all  the  week. 
The  song  and  sermon  and  sanctuary  will  hold  back  from  pre- 
sumptuous sins.  That  young  man  who  begins  the  duties  of 
life  with  either  secret  or  open  disrespect  of  the  holy  day,  I 
venture  to  prophesy,  will  meet  with  no  permanent  successes. 
God's  curse  will  fall  upon  his  ship,  his  store,  his  ofifice,  his 
studio,  his  body  and  his  soul.  "  The  way  of  the  wicked  He 
turneth  upside  down."  In  one  of  tJie  old  fables  it  was  said  that 
a  wonderful  child  was  born  in  Bagdad,  and  a  magician  could 
hear  his  footsteps  six  thousand  miles  away.  But  I  can  hear 
in  the  footstep  of  that  young  man  on  his  way  to  the  house 
of  worship  this  morning  the  step  not  only  of  a  life-time  of 
usefulness,  but  the  on-coming  step  of  eternal  ages  of  happi- 
ness yet  millions  of  years  away. 

A   NOBLE   IDEAL, 

and  confident  expectation  of  approximating  to  it,  is  an  infal- 
lible defence.  The  artist  completes  in  his  mind  the  great 
thought  that  he  wishes  to  transfer  to  the  canvas  or  the  mar- 
ble before  he  takes  up  the  crayon  or  the  chisel.  The  archi- 
tect plans  out  the  entire  structure  before  he  orders  the 
workmen  to  begin  ;  and  though  there  may  for  a  long  while 
seem  to  be  nothing  but  blundering  and  rudeness,  he  has  in 
his  mind  every  Corinthian  wreath  and  Gothic  arch  and  Byzan- 


3/2  rRUMPET  PEALS. 

line  capital.  The  poet  arranges  the  entire  plot  before  he 
begins  to  chime  the  first  canto  of  tingling  rhythms.  And  yet, 
strange  to  say,  there  are  men  who  attempt  to  build  their 
character  without  knowing  whether  in  the  end  it  shall  be  a 
rude  Tartar's  tent  or  a  St.  Mark's  of  Venice — men  who 
begin  to  write  the  intricate  poem  of  their  lives  without 
knowing  whether  it  shall  be  a  Homer's  Odyssey  or  a  rhyme- 
ster's botch.  Nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a 
thousand  are  living  without  any  great  life-plot.  Booted 
and  spurred  and  plumed,  they  urge  their  swift  coursers  in 
the  hottest  haste.  I  ask:  "Halloo,  man,  whither  away.'*" 
His  response  is,  "Nowhere."  Rush  into  the  busy  shop  or 
store  of  many  a  one,  and  taking  the  plane  out  of  the  man's 
hand  and  laying  down  the  yard  stick,  say:  "What,  man,  is 
all  this  about — so  much  stir,  and  sweat  ?"  The  reply  will 
stumble  and  break  down  between  teeth  and  lips.  Every 
day's  duty  ought  only  to  be  the  filling  up  of  the  main  plan 
of  existence.  Let  men  be  consistent.  If  they  prefer  mis- 
deeds to  correct  courses  of  action,  then  let  them  draw  out 
the  design  of  knavery  and  cruelty  and  plunder.  Let  every 
day's  falsehood  and  wrong-doing  be  added  as  coloring  to 
the  picture.  Let  bloody  deeds  red-stripe  the  picture,  and 
the  clouds  of  a  wrathful  God  hang  down  heavily  over  the 
canvas,  ready  to  break  out  in  clamorous  tempest.  Let  the 
waters  be  chafed,  and  froth-tangled,  and  green  with  immeas- 
urable depths.  Then  take  a  torch  of  burning  pitch  and  scorch 
into  the  frame  the  right  name  for  it.  If  one  entering  upon 
sinful  directions  would  only  in  his  mind  or  on  paper  draw  out 
in  awful  reality  this  dreadful  future,  he  would  recoil  from  it 
and  say  :  "  Am  I  a  Dante,  that  by  m\'  own  life  I  should  write 
another  Inferno  ?"  But  if  you  arc  resolved  to  live  a  life  such 
as  God  and  good  men  will  approve,  do  not  let  it  be  a  vague 
dream,  an  indefinite  determination,  but  in  your  mind  or 
upon  paper,  sketch  it  in  all  its  minutiae.  You  cannot  know 
the  changes  to  which  you  may  be  subject,  but  }'ou  may  know 
what  always  will  be  right  and  what  alwa}'s  will  be  wrong. 
Let  gentleness  and  charity  and  veracit}'  and  faith  stand  in  the 
heart  of  the  sketch.     On   some  still  brook's  bank  make  a 


DEFENCES  OF    YOUNG  MEN.  373 

lamb  and  a  lion  lie  down  tof^cthcr.  Draw  two  or  three  of 
the  trees  of  life,  not  frost-stricken  nor  ice-gla/.ed,  nor  wind- 
stripped,  h)ut  with  thick  verdure  waving  like  the  palms  of 
heaven.  On  the  darkest  cloud  place  the  rainbow,  that  pil- 
low of  the  dying  storm.  You  need  not  burn  the  title  on 
the  frame.  The  dullest  will  catch  the  design  at  a  glace,  and 
say  :  "  That  is  the  road  to  heaven." 

Ah,  me!  On  this  sea  of  life,  what  innumerable  ships, 
heavily  laden  and  well-rigged,  yet  seem  bound  for  no  port. 
Swept  every  whither  of  wind  and  wave,  they  go  up  by  the 
mountains,  they  go  down  by  the  valleys,  and  are  at  their 
wits'  end.  They  sail  by  no  chart,  they  watch  no  star,  they 
long  for  no  harbor.  I  beg  every  young  man  to-day  to  draw 
out  a  sketch  of  what,  by  the  grace  of  God,  he  means  to  be. 
Think  no  excellence  so  high  that  you  cannot  reach  it.  lie 
who  starts  out  in  life  with  a  high  ideal  of  character,  and 
faith  in  its  attainment,  will  find  himself  encased  from  a  thou- 
sand temptations.  There  are  magnificent  possibilities  before 
each  of  you  young  men  of  the  stout  heart,  and  the  buoyant 
step,  and  the  bounding  spirit.  I  would  marshal  you  for 
grand  achievement.  God  now  provides  for  you  the  field, 
and  the  armor,  and  the  fortifications  ;  who  is  on  the  Lord's 
side?  The  captain  of  the  Zouaves  in  ancient  times,  to  en- 
courage them  against  the  immense  odds  on  the  side  of  their 
enemies,  said  :  "  Come,  my  men,  look  these  fellows  in  the 
face.  They  are  six  thousand,  you  are  three  hundred. 
Surely  the  match  is  even."  That  speech  gave  them  the 
victory.  Be  not,  my  hearers,  dismayed  at  anytime  by  what 
seems  immense  odds  against  you.  Is  fortune,  is  want  of 
education,  are  men,  are  devils  against  you,  though  the 
multitudes  of  earth  and  hell  confront  you,  stand  up  to  the 
charge.  With  a  million  against  you,  the  match  is  just  even. 
Nay,  you  have  a  decided  advantage.  "  If  God  be  for  us,  who 
can  be  against  us?"  Thus  protected,  you  need  not  spend 
much  time  in  answering  your  assailants. 

Many  years  ago  word  came  to  me  that  two  impostors,  as 
temperance  lecturers,  had  been  speaking  in  Ohio,  in  various 
places,  and  giving  their  experience,  and  they  told  their  au 


374  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

dicncc  th-at  they  had  long  been  intimate  with  me,  and  had 
become  drunkards  by  dining  at  my  table,  where  I  had  al- 
ways liquors  of  all  sorts.  Indignant  to  the  last  degree,  I 
went  down  to  Patrick  Campbell,  Chief  of  the  Brooklyn 
Police,  saying  that  I  was  going  to  start  that  night  for  Ohio 
to  have  those  villains  arrested,  and  I  wanted  him  to  tell  me 
how  to  make  the  arrest.  He  smiled  and  said  :  "  Do  not 
waste  your  time  by  chasing  these  men.  Go  home  and  do 
your  work,  and  they  can  do  you  no  harm."  I  took  his 
counsel,  and  all  was  well.  Long  ago  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  if  one  will  put  his  trust  in  God  and  be  faithful  to  duty, 
he  need  not  fear  any  evil.  Have  God  on  your  side,  young 
man,  and  all  the  combined  forces  of  earth  and  hell  can  do 
you  no  damage. 

RELIGIOUS  PRINCIPLE. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  that  the  mightiest  defence  for 
a  young  man  is  the  possession  of  religious  principle.  Noth- 
ing can  take  the  place  of  it.  He  may  have  manners  that 
would  put  to  shame  the  gracefulness  and  courtesy  of  a  Lord 
Chesterfield.  Foreign  languages  may  drop  from  his  tongue. 
He  may  be  able  to  discuss  literature  and  laws  and  foreign 
customs.  He  may  wield  a  pen  of  unequalled  polish  and 
power.  His  quickness  and  tact  may  qualify  him  for  the 
highest  salary  of  the  counting-house.  He  may  be  as  sharp 
as  Herod  and  as  strong  as  Samson,  with  as  fine  locks  as 
those  which  hung  Absalom,  still  he  is  not  safe  from  contam- 
ination. The  more  elegant  his  manner,  and  the  more  fas- 
cinating his  dress,  the  more  peril.  Satan  does  not  care  for 
the  allegiance  of  a  cowardly  and  illiterate  being.  He  cannot 
bring  him  into  efficient  service.  But  he  loves  to  storm  that 
castle  of  character  which  has  in  it  the  most  spoils  and  treas- 
ures. It  was  not  some  crazy  craft  creeping  along  the  coast 
with  a  valueless  cargo  that  the  pirate  attacked,  but  the  ship, 
full-winged  and  flagged,  plying  between  great  ports,  carry- 
ing its  millions  of  specie.  The  more  your  natural  and  ac- 
t|uirctl  acci)nq)lishnicnts,  the  more   need   of   the   religion   of 


DEFENCES  OF    YOUNG  MEN.  3/5 

Jesus.  That  does  not  cut  in  upon  or  hack  up  any  smooth- 
ness of  disposition  or  behavior.  It  gives  symmetry.  It  ar- 
rests that  in  the  soul  which  ought  to  be  arrested,  and  pro- 
pels that  which  ought  to  be  propelled.  It  fills  up  the 
gullies.  It  elevates  and  transforms.  To  beauty  it  gives 
more  beauty,  to  tact  more  tact,  to  enthusiasm  of  nature 
more  enthusiasm.  When  the  Holy  Spirit  impresses  the 
image  of  God  on  the  heart,  He  does  not  spoil  the  canvas. 
If  in  all  the  multitudes  of  young  men  upon  whom  religion 
has  acted  you  could  find  one  nature  that  had  been  the  least 
damaged,  I  would  yield  this  proposition. 

You  may  now  have  enough  strength  of  character  to  repel 
the  various  temptations  to  gross  wickedness  which  assail 
you,  but  I  do  not  know  in  what  strait  you  may  be  thrust  at 
some  future  time.  Nothing  short  of  the  grace  of  the  Cross 
may  then  be  able  to  deliver  you  from  the  lions.  You  are 
not  meeker  than  Moses,  nor  holier  than  David,  nor  more 
patient  than  Job,  and  you  ought  not  to  consider  yourself 
invulnerable.  You  may  have  some  weak  point  of  character 
that  you  have  never  discovered,  and  in  some  hour  when  you 
are  assaulted  the  Philistines  will  be  upon  thee,  Samson. 
Trust  not  in  your  good  habits,  or  your  early  training,  or 
your  pride  of  character ;  nothing  short  of  the  arm  of  Al- 
mighty God  will  be  sufificient  to  uphold  you.  You  look  for- 
ward to  the  world  sometimes  with  a  chilling  despondency. 
Cheer  up,  I  will  tell  you  how  you  may  make  a  fortune. 
"  Seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness  and 
all  other  things  will  be  added  unto  you."  I  know  you  do 
not  want  to  be  mean  in  this  matter.  Give  God  the  fresh- 
ness of  your  life.  You  will  not  have  the  heart  to  drink  down 
the  brimming  cup  of  life,  and  then  pour  the  dregs  on  God's 
altar.  To  a  Saviour  so  infinitely  generous  you  have  not  the 
heart  to  act  like  that.  That  is  not  brave,  that  is  not  honor- 
able, that  is  not  manly.  Your  greatest  want  in  all  the  world 
is  a  new  heart.  In  God's  name  I  tell  you  that.  And  the 
Blessed  Spirit  presses  through  the  solemnities  and  privileges 
of  this  holy  hour.  Put  the  cup  of  life  eternal  to  your  thirsty 
lips.     Thrust  it  not  back.     Mercy  offers  it ;  bleeding  mercy, 


3/6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

long-suffering  mercy.  Reject  all  other  friendships,  be  un- 
grateful for  all  other  kindness,  prove  recreant  to  all  other 
bargains,  but  despise  God's  love  for  your  immortal  soul — 
don't  you  do  that. 

I  would  like  to  see  some  of  you  this  hour  press  out  of 
the  ranks  of  the  world  and  lay  your  conquered  spirit  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus.  This  hour  is  no  wandering  vagabond,  stag- 
gering over  the  earth,  it  is  a  winged  messenger  of  the  skies 
whispering  mercy  to  thy  soul.  Admiral  Farragut,  one  of 
the  most  admired  men  of  the  American  Navy,  early  became 
a  Christian,  and,  seated  not  long  before  his  death,  at  Long 
Branch,  he  was  giving  some  friends  an  account  of  his  early 
life.  He  said :  "  My  father  went  down  in  behalf  of  the 
United  States  Government  to  put  an  end  to  Aaron  Burr's 
rebellion.  I  was  a  cabin-boy,  and  went  along  with  him.  I 
could  swear  like  an  old  salt.  I  could  gamble  in  every  style 
of  gambling.  I  knew  all  the  wickedness  there  was  at  that 
time  abroad.  One  day  my  father  cleared  everybody  out  of 
the  cabin  except  myself,  and  locked  the  door.  He  said  : 
'  David,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  What  are  you  going  to 
be?'  'Well,'  I  said,  'father,  I  am  going  to  follow  the  sea.* 
'  Follow  the  sea !  and  be  a  poor  miserable,  drunken  sailor, 
kicked  and  cuffed  about  the  world,  and  die  of  a  fever  in  a 
foreign  hospital  ? ' 

"  '  Oh,  no  ! '  I  said,  '  father,  I  will  not  do  that ;  I  will  tread 
the  quarter-deck  and  command  as  you  do.'  '  No,  David,' 
my  father  said,  '  no,  David,  a  person  that  has  your  principles 
and  your  bad  habits  will  never  tread  the  quarter-deck  or 
command.' 

"  My  father  went  out  and  shut  the  door  after  him,  and  I 
said  then,  '  I  will  change  ;  I  will  never  swear  again,  I  will 
never  drink  again,  I  will  never  gamble  again  ;'  and,  gentle- 
men, by  the  help  of  God,  I  have  kept  those  three  vows  to 
this  time.  I  soon  after  that  became  a  Christian,  and  that 
decided  my  fate  for  time  and  for  eternity." 


CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Termini  of  Two  City  Roads. 

"  Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet." — Prov.  4  :  26. 

THE   COUNTRY   HOME. 

It  was  Monday,  September  20,  at  a  country  depot.  Two 
young  men  were  to  take  the  cars  for  the  city.  Father 
brought  them  in  a  wagon  with  two  trunks.  The  evening 
before,  at  the  old  home,  was  rather  a  sad  time.  The  neigh- 
bors had  gathered  in  to  say  good-by.  Indeed,  all  the  Sun- 
day afternoon  there  had  been  a  strolling  that  way  from  ad- 
joining farms,  for  it  was  generally  known  that  the  two  boys 
the  next  morning  were  going  to  the  city  to  live ;  and  the 
whole  neighborhood  was  interested,  some  hoping  they  would 
do  well,  and  others,  without  saying  anything,  hoping  for 
them  a  city  failure.  Sitting  on  the  fence  talking  over  the 
matter,  the  neighbors  would  interlard  their  conversation 
about  the  wheat  crop  of  last  summer,  and  the  apple  crop  yet 
to  be  gathered,  with  remarks  about  the  city  prospects  of 
Edward  and  Nicholas,  for  those  were  the  names  of  the  two 
young  men.  Edward  seventeen,  and  Nicholas  nineteen  ;  but 
Edward,  although  two  years  younger,  being  a  little  quicker 
to  learn,  knew  as  much  as  Nicholas. 

Father  and  mother  on  Monday  morning  had  both  re- 
solved to  go  to  the  depot  with  the  boys,  but  the  mother  at 
the  last  moment  backed  out,  and  she  said  that  somehow  she 
felt  quite  weak  that  morning,  and  had  no  appetite  for  a  day 
or  two,  and  so  concluded  to  say  good-by  at  the  front  door 
of  the  old  place.  Where  she  went  and  what  she  did  after 
the  wagon  left,  I  leave  other  mothers  to  guess.  The  break- 
fast things  stood  almost  till  noon  before  they  were  cleared 
away.     But  little  was  said  on  the  way  to  the  railroad  sta- 

377 


3/8  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

tion.  As  the  locomotive  whistle  was  heard  coming  around 
the  curve,  the  father  put  out  his  hand — somewhat  knotted 
at  the  knuckles,  and  one  of  the  joints  stiffened  )-ears  ago  by 
a  wound  from  a  scythe — and  said  ;  "  Good-by,  Edward, 
good-by,  Nicholas  !  Take  good  care  of  yourselves  and  write 
as  soon  as  you  get  there,  and  let  us  know  how  they  treat 
you.     Your  mother  will  be  anxious  to  hear." 

LANDED   IN   THE   CITY 

they  sought  out,  with  considerable  inquiry  of  policemen  on 
street  corners  and  questioning  of  car-drivers,  the  two  com- 
mercial establishments  to  which  they  were  destined — so  far 
apart  that  thereafter  they  seldom  saw  each  other ;  for  it  is 
astonishing  how  far  apart  two  persons  can  be  in  a  large  city, 
especially  if  their  habits  are  different,  practically  a  hundred 
miles  from  Bowling  Green  to  Canal  Street,  or  even  from 
Atlantic  Avenue  to  Fulton. 

Edward  being  the  youngest,  we  must  look  after  him 
first.  He  never  was  in  so  large  a  store  in  all  his  life.  Such 
interminable  shelves,  such  skilful  imitation  of  real  men  and 
v/omen  to  display  goods  on,  such  agility  of  cash  bo)-s,  such 
immense  stock  of  goods,  and  a  whole  community  of  em- 
ployees. His  head  is  confused,  as  he  seems  dropped  like  a 
pebble  in  the  great  ocean  of  business  life.  "  Have  you  seen 
that  green-horn  from  the  country?"  whispers  young  man  to 
young  man.  "  He  is  in  such  and  such  a  department.  We 
will  have  to  break  him  in  some  night." 

Edward  stuck  at  his  new  place  all  day,  so  homesick  that 
any  moment  he  could  have  cried  aloud,  if  his  pride  had  not 
suppressed  everything.  Here  and  there  a  tear  he  carelessly 
dashed  off  as  though  it  were  from  influenza  or  a  cold  in  the 
head.  But  some  of  you  know  how  a  young  man  feels  when 
set  down  in  a  city  of  strangers,  thereafter  to  fight  his  own 
battles,  and  no  one  near  by  seeming  to  care  whether  he  lives 
or  dies. 

But  that  evening,  as  the  hour  for  closing  has  come,  there 
are  two  or  three  j'oung  men  who  sidle  up   to    Edward   and 


THE    TERMINI  OF    TWO    CITY  ROADS.  ^79 

ask  him  how  he  hkes  the  city,  and  where  he  expects  to  go 
that  night,  and  if  he  would  hke  them  to  show  him  the  sights. 
He  thanks  them,  and  says  he  shall  have  to  take  some  even 
ings  for  unpacking  and  making  arrangements,  as  he  had  just 
arrived,  but  that  after  a  while  he  will  be  glad  to  accept  their 
company.  After  spending  two  or  three  evenings  in  his 
boarding-house  room,  walking  up  and  down,  looking  at  the 
bare  wall,  or  an  old  chromo  hung  there  at  the  time  that  re- 
ligious newspapers  by  such  prizes  advanced  their  subscrip- 
tion lists,  and  after  an  hour  toying  with  the  match-box,  and 
ever  and  anon  examining  his  watch  to  see  if  it  is  time  to  re- 
tire, and  it  seems  that  ten  o'clock  at  night,  or  even  nine 
o'clock,  will  never  come,  he  resolves  to  accept  the  chaperon- 
ing of  his  new  friends  at  the  store.  The  following  night 
they  are  all  out  together.  Although  his  salary  is  not  large, 
he  is  quite  flush  with  pocket  money,  which  the  old  folks 
gave  him  after  saving  by  for  some  time.  He  cannot  be 
mean,  and  these  friends  are  doing  all  this  for  his  pleasure, 
and  so  he  pays  the  bills.  At  the  door  of  places  of  enchant- 
ment, his  companions  cannot  find  the  change,  and  they  acci- 
dentally fall  behind  just  as  the  ticket  office  is  approached,  or 
they  say  they  will  make  it  all  right,  and  will  themselves  pay 
the  next  time.  Edward,  accustomed  to  farm  life  or  villa"-e 
life,  is  dazed  and  enchanted  with  the  glitter  of  spectacular 
sin.  Plain  and  blunt  iniquity  Edward  would  have  immedi- 
ately repulsed,  but  sin  accompanied  by  bewitching  orchestra, 
sin  amid  gilded  pillars  and  gorgeous  upholstery,  sin  arrayed 
in  all  the  attractions  that  the  powers  of  darkness  in  combina- 
tion can  arrange  to  magnetize  a  young  man,  is  very  different 
from  sin  in  its  loathsome  and  disgusting  shape. 

Rut  after  being  a  few  nights  late  out,  he  says:  "  I  must 
stop.  My  purse  won't  stand  this.  My  health  won't  stand 
this.  My  reputation  won't  stand  this."  Indeed,  one  of  the 
business  firm,  one  night  from  his  private  box,  in  which  he 
applauded  a  play  wherein  attitudes  and  phraseology  oc- 
curred which  if  taken  or  uttered  in  his  own  parlor  would 
have  caused  him  to  shoot  or  stab  the  actor  on  the  spot — 
from  this  high-priced  box  sees  in   a  cheaper  place  the  new 


38o  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

clerk  of  his  store,  and  is  led  to  ask  questions  about  his  habits, 
and  wonders  how,  on  the  salary  the  house  pays  him,  he  can 
do  as  he  does.  Edward,  to  recover  his  physical  vigor  and 
his  finances,  stopped  awhile,  and  spent  a  few  more  evenings 
examining  the  chromo  on  the  wall,  and  counting  the  matches 
in  the  match-box. 

"Confound  it!"  cried  the  young  man,  "I  cannot  stand 
this  life  any  longer,  and  I  must  go  out  and  see  the  world." 
The  same  young  men,  and  others  of  a  now  larger  acquaint- 
ance, are  ready  to  escort  him.  There  is  never  any  lack  of 
such  guidance.  If  a  man  wants  to  go  the  whole  round  of 
sin,  he  can  find  plenty  to  take  him,  a  whole  regiment  who 
knows  the  way.     But  after  a  while  Edward's. 

MONEY   IS   ALL   GONE. 

He  has  received  his  salary  again  and  again,  but  it  was 
spent  before  he  got  it,  borrowing  a  little  here  and  a  little 
there.  What  shall  he  do  now?  Why,  he  has  seen  in  his 
rounds  of  the  gambling  table  men  who  put  down  a  dollar 
and  took  up  ten,  put  down  a  hundred  and  took  up  a  thou- 
sand. Why  not  he !  To  reconstruct  his  finances  he  takes  a 
hand,  and  wins;  is  so  pleased  he  takes  another  hand,  and 
wins ;  is  in  a  frenzy  of  delight,  and  takes  another  hand  and 
loses  all. 

When  he  first  came  to  the  city  Edward  was  disposed  to 
keep  Sunday  in  quietness,  reading  a  little,  and  going  occa- 
sionally to  hear  a  sermon.  Now,  Sunday  is  a  day  of  carousal. 
He  is  full  of  intoxicants  by  1 1  o'clock  in  the  day,  and  stag, 
gers  into  one  of  the  licensed  rumholes  of  the  city. 

Some  morning,  Edward,  his  breath  stenchful  with  rum, 
takes  his  place  in  the  store.  He  is  not  fit  to  be  there.  He 
is  listless  or  silly  or  impertinent,  or  in  some  way  incom- 
petent, and  a  messenger  comes  to  him  and  says :  "  The  firm 
desire  to  see  you  in  the  private  ofifice." 

The  gentleman  m  the  private  office  says:  "Edward,  we 
will  not  need  you  any  more.  W'e  owe  you  a  little  money 
for  services  since  wc  paid  }'ou  last,  and  here  it  is." 


THE    TERMINI  OF   TWO    CITY  ROADS.  38 1 

''What  is  the  matter?"  says  the  young  man.  "I  cannot 
understand  this.     Have  I  done  anything?" 

The  reply  is :  "  We  do  not  wish  any  words  with  you. 
Our  engagement  with  each  other  is  ended." 

"  Out  of  employment !"  What  does  that  mean  to  a  good 
young  man?  It  means  opportunity  to  get  another  and  per- 
haps a  better  place.  It  means  opportunity  for  mental  im- 
provement and  preparation  for  higher  work.  "  Out  of  em- 
ployment !"  What  does  that  mean  to  a  dissipated  young 
man?  It  means  a  lightning  express  train  on  a  down  grade 
on  the  Grand  Trunk  to  Perdition. 

It  is  now  only  five  years  since  Edward  came  to  town. 
He  used  to  write  home  once  a  week  at  the  longest.  He  has 
not  written  home  for  three  months.  "  What  can  be  the 
matter?"  say  the  old  people  at  home.  One  Saturday  morn- 
ing the  father  puts  on  the  best  apparel,  of  his  wardrobe,  and 
goes  to  the  city  to  find  out. 

"  Oh,  he  has  not  been  here  for  a  long  while,"  say  the 
gentlemen  of  the  firm.  "  Your  son,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  on 
the  wrong  track." 

The  old  father  goes  hunting  him  from  place  to  place,  and 
comes  suddenly  upon  him,  that  night,  in  a  place  of  abandon- 
ment. 

The  father  says :  "  My  son,  come  with  me.  Your  mother 
has  sent  me  to  bring  you  home.  I  hear  you  are  out  of  money 
and  good  clothes,  and  you  know  as  long  as  we  live  you  can 
have  a  home.  Come  right  away,"  he  says,  putting  his  hand 
on  the  young  man's  shoulder. 

In  angry  tone,  Edward  replies  :  ''  Take  your  hands  off  me  ! 
You  mind  your  own  business !  I  will  do  as  I  please !  Take 
your  hands  off  me,  or  I  will  strike  you  down !  You  go  your 
way,  and  I  will  go  mine !" 

THE   CONTRAST. 

That  Saturday  night,  or  rather  Sunday  morning — for  it 
was  by  this  time  two  o'clock  in  the  morning — the  father  goes 
to  the  city  home  of  Nicholas,  and  rings  the  bell,  and  rings 


382  TKUMl'ET  PEALS. 

ai^ain  and  again,  and  it  seems  as  if  no  answer  would  be 
given  ;  but  after  a  while  a  window  is  hoisted  and  a  voice 
cries,  "Who's  there?" 

"  It  is  I,"  says  the  old  man. 

"  Why,  father,  is  that  you?" 

In  a  minute  the  door  is  opened  and  the  son  says,  "What 
in  the  world  has  brought  you  to  the  city  at  this  hour  of  the 
night  ?" 

"Oh!  Edward  has  brought  mc  here.  I  feared  your 
mother  would  go  stark  crazy,  not  hearing  from  him,  and  I 
find  out  that  it  is  worse  with  him  than  I  suspected." 

"Yes,"  said  Nicholas;  "  I  had  not  the  heart  to  write  you 
any  thing  about  it.  I  have  tried  my  best  with  him,  and  all 
in  vain.  But  it  is  after  two  o'clock,"  says  Nicholas  to  his 
father,  "and  I  will  take  you  to  bed." 

On  a  comfortable  couch  in  that  house  the  old  father  lies 
down,  coaxing  sleep  for  a  few  hours,  but  no  sleep  comes. 
Whose  house  is  it  ?  That  of  his  son  Nicholas.  The  fact  is, 
that  Nicholas,  soon  after  coming  to  the  city,  became  indis- 
pensable in  the  commercial  establishment  where  he  was 
placed.  He  knew,  what  few  persons  know,  that  while  in  all 
departments  of  business  and  mechanism  and  art,  there  is  a 
surplus  of  people  of  ordinary  application  and  ordinary  dili- 
gence, there  is  a  great  scarcity,  and  always  has  been  a  great 
scarcity,  of  people  who  excel.  Plenty  of  people  to  do  things 
poorly  or  tolerably  well,  but  very  few  clerks,  or  business 
men,  or  mechanics  who  can  do  splendidly  well.  Appreciat- 
ing this,  Nicholas  had  resolved  to  do  so  grandly  that  tiie 
business  firm  could  not  do  without  him.  Always  at  his 
l)lacc  a  little  after  ever}'body  had  gone ;  as  extremely  polite 
to  those  who  declined  purchasing,  as  to  those  who  made 
large  purchases.  He  drank  no  wine,  for  he  saw  it  was  the 
empoisonment  of  multitudes  ;  and  when  an}'  one  asked  him 
to  take  something,  he  said  "  No"  w  ith  the  peculiar  intona- 
tion that  meant  no.  His  conversation  was  alwa)'s  as  pure  as 
if  his  sisters  had  been  listening. 

He  went  to  no  place  of  amusement  where  he  would  be 
ashamed  to  die.      lie  never  betted  or  gambled,  e\'en   at  a 


THE    TERMINI   OF    TIVO    CITY   ROADS.  383 

church  fair!  When  he  was  at  the  boarding-house,  after  he 
had  got  all  the  artistic  development  he  could  possibly  receive 
from  the  chromo  on  the  wall,  he  began  to  study  that  which 
would  help  him  to  promotion — penmanship,  biographies 
of  successful  men ;  or  he  went  forth  to  places  of  innocent 
amusement  and  to  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations,  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  be  found  at  a  church  prayer-meeting. 
He  rose  from  position  to  position  and  from  one  salary  to 
another  salary. 

Onl)'  five  years  in  town  and  yet  he  has  rented  his  own 
house,  or  a  suite  of  rooms,  not  very  large,  but  a  home  large 
enough  in  its  happiness  to  be  a  type  of  Heaven.  In  the 
morning,  as  the  old  father,  with  handkerchief  in  hand,  comes 
crying  downstairs  to  the  table,  there  are  four  persons,  one 
for  each  side  :  the  young  man,  and  opposite  to  him  the  best 
blessing  that  a  God  of  infinite  goodness  can  bestow,  namely, 
a  good  wife  ;  and  on  another  side,  the  high  chair  filled  with 
dimpled  and  rollicking  glee,  that  makes  the  grandfather 
opposite  smile  outside,  while  he  has  a  broken  heart  within. 

Well,  as  I  said,  it  was  Sabbath,  and  Nicholas  and  his 
father,  knowing  that  there  is  no  place  so  appropriate  for  a 
troubled  soul  as  the  house  of  God,  find  their  way  to  church. 
It  is  communion  day,  and  what  is  the  old  man's  surprise  to 
see  his  son  pass  down  the  aisle  with  one  of  the  silver  chalices, 
showing  him  to  be  a  church  official.  The  fact  was,  that 
Nicholas  from  the  start  in  city  life  honored  God,  and  God 
had  honored  him.  When  the  first  wave  of  city  temptation 
struck  him,  he  had  felt  the  need  of  divine  guidance  and 
divine  protection,  and  in  prayer  had  sought  a  regenerated 
heart,  and  had  obtained  that  mightiest  of  all  armor,  that 
mightiest  of  all  protection,  that  mightiest  of  all  reinforce- 
ments, the  multipotent  and  omnipotent  grace  of  God,  and 
you  might  as  well  throw  a  thistle  down  against  Gibraltar, 
expecting  to  destroy  it,  as  with  all  the  combined  temptations 
of  earth  and  hell,  try  to  overthrow  a  young  man  who  can 
truthfully  say,  "  God  is  my  refuge  and  strength." 

But  that  Sabbath  afternoon,  while  in  the  back  room 
Nicholas  and  his  father  arc  talking  over  any  attempt  at  the 


3>S4  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

reclamation  of  Edward,  there  is  a  ringing  of  the  door-bell 
and  a  man  with  the  uniform  of  a  policeman  stands  there,  and 
a  man  with  some  embarrassment,  and  some  halting,  and  in  a 
round-about  way  says,  that  in  a  fight  in  some  low  haunt  of 
the  city  Edward  had  been  hurt.  He  says  to  Nicholas:  "  I 
heard  that  he  was  some  relation  of  yours." 

"Hurt?     Is  he  badly  hurt?" 

"  Yes  ;  very  badly  hurt." 

"  Is  the  wound  mortal?" 

"Yes;  it  is  mortal.  To  tell  you  the  whole  truth,  sir," 
says  the  policeman,  "  although  I  can  hardly  bear  to  tell  you, 
he  is  dead." 

".Dead  !"  cries  Nicholas.  And  by  this  time  the  whole 
family  are  in  the  hallway.  The  father  says:  "Just  as  I 
feared.  It  will  kill  his  mother  when  she  hears  of  it.  Oh, 
my  son,  my  son  !  Would  God  I  had  died  for  thee  !  Oh,  my 
son,  my  son !" 

"  Wash  off  the  wounds,"  says  Nicholas,  "  and  bring  him 
right  here  to  my  house,  and  let  there  be  all  respect  and  gen- 
tleness shown  him.     It  is  the  last  we  can  do  for  him." 

Oh,  what  obsequies !  The  next-door  neighbors  hardly 
knew  what  was  going  on  ;  but  Nicholas  and  the  father  and 
mother  knew.  Out  of  the  Christian  and  beautiful  home  of 
the  one  brother  is  carried  the  dissolute  brother.  No  word 
of  blame  uttered.  No  harsh  thing  said.  On  a  bank  of 
camellias  is  spelled  out  the  word  "  Brother."  Had  the  prod- 
igal been  true  and  pure  and  noble  in  life,  and  honorable  in 
death,  he  could  not  have  been  carried  forth  with  more  ten- 
derness, or  slept  in  a  more  beautiful  casket,  or  been  deposited 
in  a  more  beautiful  garden  of  the  dead.  Amid  the  loosened 
turf  the  brothers  who  left  the  country  for  city  life  five  years 
before  now  part  forever.  The  last  scene  of  the  fiftJi  act  of 
an  aivful  tragedy  of  human  life  is  ended. 

What  made  the  difference  between  these  two  young  men  ? 
Religion.  The  one  depended  on  himself,  the  other  depended 
on  God.  They  started  from  the  same  home,  had  the  same 
opportunities  of  education,  arrived  in  the  city  on  the  same 
da}-,  and   if  there  is'any  difference,  Edward   IkuI   the  ad\an- 


THE    TERMINI  OF    TWO    CITY  ROADS.  385 

tage,  for  he  was  brighter  and  quicker,  and  all  the  neighbors 
prophesied  greater  success  for  him  than  for  Nicholas. 


THE   TREMENDOUS   SECRET. 

Voices  come  up  out  of  this  audience  and  say,  "  Did  you 
know  these  brothers?"  "Yes;  knew  them  well."  "Did 
you  know  their  parents?"  "Yes;  intimately."  What  was 
the  city,  what  the  street,  what  the  last  names  of  these  young 
men?     You  have  excited  our  curiosity  ;  now  tell  us  all. 

I  \\\\\.  Nothing  in  these  characters  is  fictitious  except 
the  names.  They  are  in  every  city,  and  in  every  street  of 
every  city,  and  in  every  country.  Not  two  of  them,  but  ten 
thousand.  Aye,  aye !  Right  before  me  to-day,  and  on 
either  side  of  me,  and  above  me,  they  sit  and  stand,  the 
invulnerable  through  religious  defence  and  the  blasted  of 
city  allurements.  Those  who  shall  have  longevity  in  beauti- 
ful homes,  and  others  who  shall  have  early  graves  of  infamy. 
And  I  am  here  to-day  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God  to  give 
you  the  choice  of  the  two  characters,  the  two  histories,  the 
two  experiences,  the  two  destinies,  the  two  worlds,  the  two 
eternities. 

Standing  with  you  at  the  forks  of  the  road  something 
makes  me  think  that  if  to-day  I  set  before  the  people  the 
termini  of  the  two  roads,  they  will  all  of  them  take  the  right 
one.  There  are  before  me  in  this  house  and  in  the  invisible 
audience  back  of  this — for  journalism  has  generously  given 
me  every  week  full  opportunity  to  address  the  people  in  all 
the  towns  and  cities  of  Christendom — I  say,  in  the  visible 
and  invisible  audience,  there  are  many  who  have  not  fully 
made  up  their  minds  which  road  to  take.  "Come  with  us!" 
cry  all  the  voices  of  righteousness.  "  Come  with  us  !"  cry 
all  the  voices  of  sin. 

Oh,  man  and  woman,  ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet  !  See 
which  way  you  are  going.  Will  you  have  the  destiny  of 
Edward  or  Nicliolas  ?  There  comes  a  crisis  in  the  history  of 
every  man.  We  seldom  understand  that  turning-point  until 
it  is  far  past.     The  road  of  life  is  forked,  and  I  read  on  two 


386  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

sign-boards  :  "  This  is  the  way  to  happiness."  "  This  is  the 
way  to  ruin."  How  apt  we  are  to  pass  the  forks  of  the  road 
without  thinking  whether  it  comes  out  at  the  door  of  bliss  or 
the  gates  of  darkness. 


A   PARTING  AT   A  THEATRE. 

Many  years  ago  I  stood  on  the  anniversary  platform  with 
a  minister  of  Christ  who  made  this  remarkable  statement : 
"  Thirty  years  ago  two  young  men  started  out  in  the  evening 
to  attend  the  Park  Theatre,  New  York,  where  a  play  was  to 
be  acted  in  which  the  cause  of  religion  was  to  be  placed  in 
a  ridiculous  and  hypocritical  light.  They  came  to  the  steps. 
The  consciences  of  both  smote  them.  One  started  to  go 
home,  but  returned  again  to  the  door,  and  yet  had  not 
courage  to  enter,  and  finally  departed.  But  the  other  young 
man  entered  the  pit  of  the  theatre.  It  was  the  turning-point 
in  the  history  of  those  two  young  men.  The  man  who  en- 
tered was  caught  in  the  whirl  of  temptation.  He  sank  deeper 
and  deeper  in  infamy  ;  he  was  lost.  That  other  young  man 
was  saved,  and  he  now  stands  before  you  to  bless  God  that 
for  more  than  twenty  years  he  has  been  permitted  to  preach 
the  Gospel." 

"  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and  let  thy  heart 
cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth  ;  but  know  thou  that  for 
all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judgment." 


CHAPTER    XVI. 
Gospel  Trumpet  Peals. 

"  Blow  ye  the  trumpet  in  Zion  and  sound  an  alarm  in  my  Holy 
Mountain." — Joel  2:1. 

WARNING   AND   INVITATION. 

At  some  time  you  have  been  hit  by  the  Gospel  arrow. 
You  felt  the  wound  of  that  conviction,  and  you  plunged  into 
the  world  deeper;  just  as  the  stag,  when  the  hounds  are 
after  it,  plunges  into  Scroon  Lake,  expecting  in  that  way  to 
escape.  Jesus  Christ  is  on  your  track  to-day,  impenitent 
man  I  not  in  wrath,  but  in  mercy.  Oh,  ye  chased  and  pant- 
ing souls !  here  is  the  stream  of  God's  mercy  and  salvation, 
where  you  may  cool  your  thirst.  Stop  that  chase  of  sin  to- 
day. By  the  red  fountain  that  leaped  from  the  heart  of  my 
Lord,  I  bid  you  stop.  There  is  mercy  for  you — mercy  that 
pardons ;  mercy  that  heals  ;  everlasting  mercy.  Is  there  in 
all  this  house  anyone  who  can  refuse  the  offer  that  comes 
from  the  heart  of  the  dying  Son  of  God  ? 

There  is  in  a  forest  in  Germany,  a  place  called  the  "  Deer 
Leap,"  two  crags  about  eighteen  yards  apart,  between  a 
fearful  chasm.  This  is  called  the  "  Deer  Leap,"  because 
once  a  hunter  was  on  the  track  of  a  deer ,  it  came  to  one  of 
these  crags ;  there  was  no  escape  for  it  from  the  pursuit  of 
the  hunter,  and  in  utter  despair  it  gathered  itself  up  and  in 
the  death  agony  attempted  to  jump  across.  Of  course  it 
fell,  and  was  dashed  on  the  rocks  far  beneath.  Here  is  a 
path  to  heaven.  It  is  plain ;  it  is  safe.  Jesus  marks  it  out 
for  every  man  to  walk  in.  But  here  is  a  man  who  says:  "I 
Avon't  walk  in  that  path  ;  I  will  take  my  own  way."  He 
comes  on  up  until  he  confronts  the  chasm  that  divides  his 
soul  from  heaven.     Now,  his  last  hour  has  come,  and  he  re- 

3S7 


388  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

solves  that  he  will  leap  that  chasm  from  the  heights  of  earth 
to  the  heights  of  heaven.  Stand  back,  now,  and  give  him 
full  swing,  for  no  soul  ever  did  that  successfully.  Let  him 
try.  Jump!  Jump!  He  misses  the  mark,  and  he  goes  down, 
depth  below  depth,  "destroyed  without  remedy."  Men! 
angels  !  devils !  what  shall  we  call  that  place  of  awful  catas- 
trophe? Let  it  be  known  forever  as  "  The  Sinner  s  Death 
Leapy 


TIME   AND   ETERNITY. 

We  all  come  under  the  divine  satire  when  we  make  the 
questions  of  time  more  prominent  than  the  questions  of 
eternity.  Come,  let  us  all  go  into  the  confessional.  Are 
not  all  tempted  to  make  the  question,  Where  shall  I  live 
now,  greater  than  the  question.  Where  shall  I  live  forever  ? 
How  shall  I  get  more  dollars  here,  greater  than  the  question. 
How  shall  I  lay  up  treasures  in  heaven?  How  shall  I  pay 
my  debts  to  man,  greater  than  the  question,  How  shall  I 
meet  my  obligations  to  God  ?  How  shall  I  gain  the  world, 
greater  than  the  question,  What  if  1  lose  my  soul  ?  Why  did 
God  let  sin  come  into  the  world,  greater  than  the  question, 
How  shall  I  get  it  extirpated  from  my  nature  ?  What  shall  I 
do  with  the  twenty  or  forty  or  seventy  years  of  my  sublunar 
existence,  greater  than  the  question,  What  shall  I  do  with 
the  millions  of  cycles  of  my  post-terrestrial  existence  ?  Time, 
how  small  it  is !  Eternity,  how  vast  it  is !  The  former  more 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  latter  than  a  gnat  is  in- 
significant when  compared  with  a  camel.  W^e  dodged.  We 
said,  "That  doesn't  mean  me,  and  that  doesn't  mean  me," 
and  with  a  ruinous  benevolence  we  are  giving  the  whole 
away. 

But  let  us  all  surrender  to  the  charge.  What  an  ado  about 
things  here!  What  poor  preparation  for  a  great  eternity! 
As  though  a  minnow  were  larger  than  a  behemoth,  as  though 
a  swallow  took  wider  circuit  than  an  albatros,  as  though  a 
nettle  were  taller  than  a  Lebanon  cedar,  as  though   a  gnat 


GOSPEL    TR UMPE T  PEALS.  3 89 

were  greater  than  a  camel,  as  though  a  minute  were  longer 
than  a  century,  as  though  time  were  higher,  deeper,  broader, 
than  eternity.  So  the  truth  which  flashed  with  lightning 
of  wit  as  Christ  uttered  it,  is  followed  by  the  crashing  thun- 
ders of  awful  catastrophe  to  those  who  make  the  questions  of 
time  greater  than  the  questions  of  the  future,  the  oncoming, 
overshadowing  future.     O  eternity!  eternity!  eternity! 

TIME   OUR   ONLY   OPPORTUNITY. 

King  Alfred,  before  modern  time-pieces  were  Invented, 
used  to  divide  the  day  into  three  parts,  eight  hours  each,  and 
then  had  three  wax  candles.  By  the  time  the  first  candle 
had  burned  to  the  socket,  eight  hours  had  gone,  and  when 
the  second  candle  had  burned  to  the  socket,  another  eight 
hours  had  gone,  and  when  all  the  three  candles  were  gone 
out,  then  the  day  had  passed.  Oh,  that  some  of  us,  instead 
of  calculating  our  days  and  nights  and  years  by  any  earthly 
time-piece,  might  calculate  them  by  the  numbers  of  op- 
portunities and  mercies  which  are  burning  down  and  burn- 
ing out,  never  to  be  relighted,  lest  at  last  we  be  amid  the 
foolish  virgins  who  shall  cry,  "  Our  lamps  have  gone  out !" 

SOLEMN   THOUGHT. 

Xerxes  looked  off  on  his  army.  There  were  two  million 
men — perhaps  the  Finest  Army  ever  marshalled.  Xerxes 
rode  along  the  lines,  reviewed  them,  came  back,  stood  on 
some  high  point,  looked  off  upon  the  two  million  men,  and 
burst  into  tears.  At  that  moment,  when  every  one  sup- 
posed he  would  be  in  the  greatest  exultation,  he  broke  down 
in  grief.  They  asked  him  why  he  wept.  "Ah!"  he  said, 
"•  I  weep  at  the  thought  that  so  soon  all  this  host  will  be 
dead."  So  I  stand  looking  off  upon  the  host  of  immortal 
men  and  women,  and  realize  the  fact,  that  soon  the  places 
which  know  them  now  will  know  them  no  more,  and  they 
will  be  gone — whither?  whither?  There  is  a  stirring  idea 
which  the  poet  put  in  very  peculiar  verse  when  he  said  : 


390  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

"  'Tis  not  for  man  to  trifle  :  life  is  brief, 

And  sin  is  here  ; 
Our  age  is  but  the  falling  of  a  leaf — 

A  dropping  tear. 
Not  many  lives,  but  only  one  have  we — 

One,  only  one  ; 
How  sacred  should  that  one  life  ever  be — 

That  narrow  span  !" 

Not  one  surplus  second  have  you  to  spare.     Quick,  quick, 
quick ! 

Great  God,  is  life  such  an  uncertain  thing?  If  I  bear  a 
little  too  hard  with  my  right  foot  on  the  earth,  does  it  break 
through  into  the  grave?  Is  this  world  which  swings  at  the 
speed  of  thousands  of  miles  an  hour  around  the  sun  going 
with  tenfold  more  speed  toward  the  judgment  day?  Oh,  I 
am  overborne  with  the  thought,  and  in  the  conclusion  I  cry 
to  one  and  I  cry  to  the  other  :  "  Oh,  time  !  Oh,  eternity  !" 


ETERNITY   FOR   TIME. 

How  little  care  do  we  bestow  upon  the  railroad  depot 
where  we  stop  twenty  minutes  to  dine  !  We  dash  in  and  we 
dash  out  again.  We  do  not  examine  the  architecture  of 
the  building,  nor  the  face  of  the  caterer.  We  supply  our 
hunger,  we  pay  our  money,  and  we  put  on  our  hat  and  take 
our  place  in  the  train.  What  is  that  depot  as  compared 
with  the  place  for  which  we  are  bound  ?  Now,  my  friends, 
this  world  is  only  a  stopping-place  on  the  way  to  a  momen- 
tous destination,  and  yet  how  many  of  us  sit  down  as  though 
we  had  consummated  our  journey,  as  though  we  had  come 
to  the  final  depot,  when  our  stopping  here  is  as  compared 
with  our  stopping  there  as  is  twenty  minutes  to  twelve 
hours — yea,  as  the  one  hundredth  part  of  a  second  compared 
with  ten  thousand  million  years! 

Would  Spain  sell  us  Cuba  for  a  bushel  of  wheat  ?  Would 
England  sell  us  India  for  a  ton  of  coal  ?  Would  Venice  sell 
us  all  her  pictures  for  an  American  school-boy's  sketch  ? 
Ah  !  that  would  be   a  better  bargain    for    Kngland,    S{)ain, 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  39 1 

and  Venice  than  that  man  makes  who  gives  his  eternity  for 
time.  Yet  how  many  there  are  who  are  saying  to-day, 
"  Give  me  the  world's  dollars,  and  you  may  have  the  eternal 
rewards !  Give  me  the  world's  applause,  and  you  may  have 
the  garlands  of  God.  Give  me  twenty,  or  forty,  or  sixty 
years  of  worldly  successes,  and  I  don't  care  what  becomes 
of  the  future.  Go  away  from  me,  God  and  angels,  and  all 
thoughts  of  the  future  !" 


SOON  TO   LEAVE   ALL. 

Where  are  Croesus  and  Cleopatra,  and  ^sopus,  who  had 
one  dish  of  food  that  cost  one  million  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars  ;  and  Lentulus,  who  had  a  pond  of  fish  worth  a  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars-;  and  Scaurus,  who 
bought  a  country  seat  for  twenty-nine  million  dollars  ;  and 
Tiberius,  who  left  at  death  a  fortune  of  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  millions  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dollars  ? 
Where  are  they? 

What  is  the  use  of  your  struggling  for  that  which  you 
cannot  keep?  As  long  as  you  have  clothes,  and  food,  and 
shelter  and  education  for  yourselves  and  your  children,  and 
the  means  for  Christian  generosity,  be  satisfied.  You  worry, 
and  tug,  and  sweat,  and  wear  your  self  out  for  that  which 
cannot  satisfy.  Whole  flocks  of  crows'  feet  on  your  tem- 
ples and  cheeks  before  they  ought  to  have  come  there.  You 
are  ten  years  older  than  you  ought  to  be,  and  yet  you  can- 
not take  along  with  you  into  the  future  world  even  the  two 
pennies  on  your  eyelids  to  keep  them  shut  after  you  are 
dead.  And  yet  you  hold  on  to  this  world  with  the  avidity 
of  the  miser  who  persisted  in  having  his  bonds  and  mort- 
gages and  notes  of  hand  in  the  bosom  of  his  dressing-gown 
while  he  was  dying,  and  in  the  last  moment  held  his  parch- 
ment in  such  a  tight  grip  that  the  undertaker  after  death 
must  almost  break  the  man's  fingers  in  order  to  get  the 
bonds  away. 

Men  are  actually  making  that  choice,  while  there  are 
others  who  have  done  far  differently.     When  they  tried  to 


392  TRUMPET   PEALS. 

bribe  with  money  Martin  Luther,  some  one  said,  "There's 
no  use  trying  to  do  that — that  Dutch  beast  cares  nothing 
for  gold."  When  they  tried,  by  giving  him  a  cardinal's  hat, 
to  bribe  Savonarola,  he  stood  up  in  his  pulpit  and  cried  out, 
"  I  will  have  no  red  hat  save  that  of  martyrdom,  colored  with 
my  own  blood."  These  men  chose  Christ  amid  great  perse- 
cutions ;  but  how  many  there  are  in  this  day,  when  Chris- 
tianity seems  to  be  popular,  who  are  ashamed  of  Christ  and 
not  willing  to  take  the  hardships — the  seeming  hardships — 
of  His  religion!  And,  alas!  for  them,  for  long  after  the 
crash  of  the  world's  demolition  they  shall  find  that  in  all 
these  years  they  were  turning  their  backs  upon  the  palaces 
of  heaven,  scrabbling  on  the  door  of  this  world's  treasure 
house,  the  saliva  of  a  terrific  lunacy  on  their  lips — horribly 
and  overwhelmingly  playing  the  fool. 


A   FICKLE   WORLD. 

Xerxes  garlanded  and  knighted  the  steerman  of  his  boat 
in  the  morning,  and  hanged  him  the  evening  of  the  same 
day.  Fifty  thousand  people  stood  around  the  columns  of 
the  national  capitol,  shouting  themselves  hoarse  at  the 
Presidential  inaugural,  and  in  four  months  so  great  were  the 
antipathies,  that  a  ruffian's  pistol  in  Washington  depot 
expressed  the  sentiment  of  a  great  multitude.  The  world 
sits  in  its  chariot  and  drives  tandem  and  the  horse  ahead  is 
Huzza,  and  the  horse  behind  is  Anathema.  Lord  Cobham, 
in  King  James'  time,  was  applauded,  and  had  $35,000  a  }-ear, 
but  w^as  afterward  execrated,  and  lived  on  scraps  stolen 
from  the  royal  kitchen.  Alexander  the  Great  after  death 
remained  unburicd  for  thirty  da\'s,  because  no  one  would  do 
the  honor  of  shovelling  him  under.  The  Duke  of  Well- 
ington refused  to  have  his  iron  fence  mended  'oecause  it  had 
been  broken  by  an  infuriated  populace  in  some  hour  of 
political  excitement,  and  he  left  it  in  ruins  that  men  might 
learn  what  a  fickle  thine  is  human  favor. 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  393 


MAKING  A   GOD   OF  THE  WORLD. 

Sad  mistake !  for  this  world  as  a  god  is  like  something 
I  saw  the  other  day  in  the  museum  of  Strasburg,  Germany 
— the  figure  of  a  virgin  in  wood  and  iron.  The  victim  in 
olden  time  was  brought  there,  and  this  figure  would  open 
its  arms  to  receive  him,  and  once  enfolded,  the  figure  closed 
with  a  hundred  knives  and  lances  upon  him,  and  then  after- 
ward let  him  drop  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  sheer  down. 
So  the  world  first  embraces  its  idolaters,  then  closes  upon 
them  with  many  tortures,  and  then  lets  them  drop  forever 
down.  The  highest  honor  the  world  could  confer  was  to 
make  a  man  Roman  emperor ;  but  out  of  sixty-three  em- 
perors, it  allowed  only  six  to  die  peacefully  in  their  beds. 

The  dominion  of  this  world  over  multitudes  is  illustrated 
by  the  names  of  coins  of  many  countries.  They  have  their 
pieces  of  money,  which  they  call  sovereigns  and  half  sover- 
eigns, crowns  and  half  crowns,  Napoleons  and  half  Napo- 
leons, Fredericks,  and  double  Fredericks,  and  ducats,  and 
Isabellinos,  all  of  which  names  mean  not  so  much  usefulness, 
as  dominion. 

A   GREAT  CHEAT. 

The  world  is  a  great  cheat,  so  many  thousand  miles  in 
diameter,  and  so  many  thousand  miles  in  circumference.  If 
I  should  put  this  audience  under  oath,  one  half  of  them 
would  swear  that  this  world  is  a  liar.  It  is  a  bank  which 
makes  large  advertisement  of  what  it  has  in  the  vaults  and 
of  the  dividends  that  it  declares,  and  tells  us  that  if  we  want 
happiness,  all  we  have  got  to  do  is  to  come  to  that  bank  and 
apply  for  it.  In  the  hour  of  need,  we  go  to  that  bank  to 
get  happiness,  and  we  find  that  the  vaults  are  empty ;  all 
reliabilities  have  absconded  and  we  are  swindled  out  of 
everything. 

Many  of  you  have  tried  the  garden  of  this  world's 
delight.     You  have  found  it  has  been  a  chacrrin.     So  it  was 


394  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

with  Theodore  Hook.  He  made  all  the  world  laugh.  He 
makes  us  laugh  now  when  we  read  his  poems ;  but  he  could 
not  make  his  own  heart  laugh.  While  in  the  midst  of  his 
festivities  he  confronted  a  looking-glass,  and  he  saw  himself 
and  said  :  "There,  that  is  true.  I  look  just  as  I  am,  done 
up  in  body,  mind,  and  purse."  So  it  was  of  Shenstone  in 
his  garden.  He  sat  down  amid  those  bowers  and  said : 
"  I  have  lost  my  road  to  happiness.  I  am  angry  and  envious 
and  frantic  and  despise  everything  around  mc,  just  as  it 
becomes  a  madman  to  do." 

WORLD  HUNTING. 

"In  the  morning  he  shall  devour  the  prey,  and  at  night  he  shall 
divide  the  spoil." — Gen.  49  :  27. 

There  is  in  this  chapter  such  an  affluence  of  simile  and 
allegory,  such  a  mingling  of  metaphors,  that  there  are  a 
thousand  thoughts  in  it  not  on  the  surface.  Old  Jacob, 
dying,  is  telling  the  fortunes  of  his  children.  He  prophesies 
the  devouring  propensities  of  Benjamin  and  his  descendants. 
With  his  dim  old  eyes  he  looks  off  and  sees  the  hunters 
going  out  to  the  fields,  ranging  them  all  day,  and  at  night- 
fall coming  home,  the  game  slung  over  the  shoulder;  and 
reaching  the  door  of  the  tent  the  hunters  begin  to  distribute 
the  game,  and  one  takes  a  coney  and  another  a  rabbit  and 
another  a  roe.  "  In  the  morning  he  shall  devour  the  prey, 
and  at  night  he  shall  divide  the  spoil."  Or,  it  may  be  a 
reference  to  the  habits  of  wild  beasts  that  slay  their  prey, 
and  then  drag  it  back  to  the  cave  or  lair,  and  divide  it  among 
the  young. 

FASCINATION   OF   KILLING. 

There  is  nothing  more  fascinating  than  the  life  of  a 
hunter.  On  a  certain  day  in  all  England  you  can  hear  the 
crack  of  the  sportsman's  gun,  because  grouse-hunting  has 
begun  ;  and  ever)-  man  who  takes  pleasure  in  destroying  life, 
and  can   afford  the  time  and  ammunition,  and   can  draw  a 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  395 

trigger,  starts  for  the  fields.  On  the  20th  of  October  our 
woods  and  forests  will  resound  with  the  shock  of  firearms, 
and  will  be  tracked  by  pointers  and  setters,  because  the 
quail  will  then  be  a  lawful  prize  for  the  sportsman.  Xeno- 
phon  grew  eloquent  in  regard  to  the  art  of  hunting.  In  the 
far  East,  people,  elephant-mounted,  chase  the  tiger.  The 
American  Indian  darts  his  arrow  at  the  buffalo,  until  the 
frightened  herd  tumble  over  the  rocks.  European  nobles 
are  often  found  in  the  fox-chase  and  at  the  stag-hunt. 
Francis  I.  was  called  the  father  of  hunting.  Moses  declares 
of  Nimrod,  "  He  was  a  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord." 
Therefore,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  the  imagery  of  my  text 
ought  to  be  suggestive,  whether  it  means  a  wolf  after  a  fox 
or  a  man  after  a  lion.  "  In  the  morning  he  shall  devour  the 
prey,  and  at  night  he  shall  divide  the  spoil." 

A   MORNING   HUNT. 

I  take  my  text,  in  the  first  place,  as  descriptive  of  those 
people  who  in  the  morning  of  their  life  give  themselves  up 
to  hunting  the  world,  but  afterward,  by  the  grace  of  God,  in 
the  evening  of  their,  life  divide  among  themselves  the  spoils 
of  Christian  character.  There  are  aged  Christian  men  and 
women  in  this  house  who,  if  they  gave  testimony,  would  tell 
you  that  in  the  morning  of  their  life  they  were  after  the 
world  as  intensely  as  a  hound  after  a  hare,  or  as  a  falcon 
swoops  upon  a  gazelle.  They  wanted  the  world's  plaudits 
and  the  world's  gains.  They  felt  that  if  they  could  get  this 
world  they  would  have  everything. 

Some  of  them  started  out  for  tJie  pleasures  of  the  world. 
They  thought  that  the  man  who  laughed  loudest  was  hap- 
piest. They  tried  repartee  and  conundrum  and  burlesque 
and  madrigal.  They  thought  they  would  like  to  be  Tom 
Hoods  or  Charles  Lambs  or  Edgar  A.  Poes.  They  mingled 
wine  and  music  and  the  spectacular.  They  were  worsliippers 
of  the  harlequin  and  the  Merry  Andrew  and  the  buffoon  and 
the  jester.  Life  was  to  them  foam  and  bubble  and  cachinna- 
tion  and  roystering  and  grimace.     They  were  so  full  of  glee 


396  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

they  could  hardly  repress  their  mirth  even  on  solemn  occa- 
sions, and  they  came  near  bursting  out  hilariously  even  at 
the  burial,  because  there  was  something  so  dolorous  in  the 
tone  or  countenance  of  the  undertaker. 

After  a  while  misfortune  struck  them  hard  on  the  back. 
The}-  found  there  was  something  they  could  not  laugh  at. 
Under  their  late  hours  their  health  gave  way,  or  there  was  a 
death  in  the  house.  Of  every  green  thing  their  soul  was 
exfoliated.  They  found  out  that  life  was  more  than  a  joke. 
From  the  heart  of  God  there  blazed  into  their  soul  an  earn- 
estness they  had  never  felt  before.  They  awoke  to  their  sin- 
fulness and  their  immortality,  and  here  they  sit  to-day  at 
sixty  or  seventy  years  of  age,  as  appreciative  of  all  innocent 
mirth  as  they  ever  were,  but  they  are  bent  on  a  style  of 
satisfaction  which  in  early  life  they  never  hunted — the  even- 
ing of  their  days  brighter  than  the  morning.  In  the  morning 
they  devoured  the  prey,  but  at  night  they  are  dividing  the 
spoil. 

HUNTING   THE   DOLLAR — THE   MONEY-GOD. 

Then  there  are  others  who  started  out  for  financial  suc- 
cess. They  see  how  limber  a  man's  back  is  when  he  bows 
down  before  some  one  transpicuous.  They  felt  they  would 
like  to  see  how  the  world  looked  from  the  window  of  a 
three-thousand-dollar  turnout.  They  thought  they  would 
like  to  have  the  morning  sunlight  tangled  in  the  headgear  of 
a  dashing  span.  They  wanted  the  bridges  in  the  park  to 
resound  under  the  rataplan  of  their  swift  hoofs.  They 
wanted  a  gilded  baldrick,  and  so  they  started  on  the  dollar 
hunt.  They  chased  it  up  one  street  and  chased  it  down 
another.  They  followed  it  when  it  burrowed  in  the  cellar. 
They  treed  it  in  the  roof.  Wherever  a  dollar  was  expected 
to  be  they  were.  They  chased  it  across  the  ocean.  They 
chased  it  across  the  land.  They  stopped  not  for  the  night. 
Hearing  that  dollar  even  in  the  darkness  thrilled  them  as 
an  yXtlirondack  sportsman  is  thrilled  by  a  loon's  laugh. 
They  chased   that   dollar  to  tin-  monc)-  vault.     They  chased 


GOSPEL    TK  UAirK  '1 '  PEA LS.  2>97 

it  to  the  Government  treasury.  They  routed  it  from  under 
the  counter.  All  the  hounds  were  out — all  the  pointers  and 
setters.  They  leaped  the  hedges  for  that  dollar  and  they 
cried:  "Hark,  away!  a  dollar!  a  dollar!"  and  when  at  last 
they  came  upon  it  and  had  actually  captured  it,  their  excite- 
ment was  like  that  of  a  falconer  who  has  successfully  flung 
his  first  hawk.  In  the  morning  of  their  life,  oh,  how  they 
devoured  the  prey! 

RETURN   FROM   THE   CHASE. 

There  came  abetter  time  to  their  souls.  They  found  out 
that  an  immortal  nature  cannot  live  on  Government  bonds. 
They  took  up  a  Northern  Pacific  bond,  and  there  was  a  hole 
in  it  through  which  they  could  look  into  the  uncertainty  of 
all  earthly  treasures.  They  saw  some.  Ralston,  living  at  the 
rate  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a  month,  leaping  from 
San  Francisco  wharf  because  he  could  not  continue  to  live 
at  the  same  ratio.  They  saw  the  wizen  and  paralytic  bankers 
who  had  changed  their  souls  into  molten  gold  stamped  with 
the  image  of  the  earth,  earthy.  They  saw  some  great  souls 
by  avarice  turned  into  homunculi ;  and  they  said  to  them- 
selves, "  I  will  seek  after  higher  treasure." 

From  that  time  they  did  not  care  whether  they  walked 
or  rode  if  Christ  walked  with  them ;  nor  whether  they  lived 
in  a  mansion  or  a  hut  if  they  dwelt  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Almighty;  nor  whether  they  were  robed  in  French  broad- 
cloth or  in  homespun  if  they  had  the  robe  of  the  Saviour's 
righteousness;  nor  whether  they  were  sandalled  with  mo- 
rocco or  calf-sl-un  if  they  were  shod  with  the  preparation  of 
the  Gospel.  Now,  you  see  peace  on  their  countenance. 
Now,  that  man  says:  "What  a  fool  I  was  to  be  enchanted 
with  this  world !  Why,  I  have  more  satisfaction  in  five 
minutes  in  the  service  of  God  than  I  had  in  all  the  first 
years  of  my  life,  while  I  was  gain-getting.  I  like  this  even- 
ing of  my  day  a  great  deal  better  than  I  did  the  morning. 
In  the  morning  I  greedily  devoured  the  prey;  but  now  it  is 
evening,  and  I  am  gloriously  dividing  the  spoil." 


398  TJWMPET  PEALS. 

My  friends,  this  world  is  a  poor  thing  to  hunt.  It  is 
healthful  to  go  out  in  the  woods  and  hunt.  It  rekindles  the 
lustre  of  the  eye.  It  strikes  the  brown  of  the  autumnal  leaf 
into  the  cheek.  It  gives  to  the  rheumatic  limbs  a  strength 
to  leap  like  the  roe.  Christopher  North's  pet  gun,  the 
muckle-mounted  Meg,  going  off  in  the  summer  in  the  for- 
ests, had  its  echo  in  the  winter  time  in  the  eloquence  that 
rang  through  the  University  halls  of  Edinburgh.  It  is 
healthy  to  go  hunting  in  the  fields ;  but  I  tell  you  that  it  is 
belittling  and  bedwarfing  and  belaming  for  a  man  to  hunt 
this  world.  The  hammer  comes  down  on  the  gun-cap,  and 
the  barrel  explodes  and  kills  you  instead  of  that  which  you 
are  pursuing. 

When  you  turn  out  to  hunt  the  world,  the  world  turns 
out  to  hunt  you ;  and  as  many  a  sportsman  aiming  his  gun 
at  a  panther's  heart  has  gone  down  under  the  striped  claws, 
so  while  you  have  been  attempting  to  devour  this  world,  the 
world  has  been  devouring  you.  So  it  was  with  Lord  Byron. 
So  it  was  with  Coleridge.  So  it  was  with  Catherine  of  Russia. 
Henry  II.  went  out  hunting  for  this  world,  and  its  lances 
stuck  through  his  heart.  Francis  I.  aimed  at  the  world,  but 
the  assassin's  dagger  put  an  end  to  his  ambition  and  his  life 
with  one  stroke.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  wrote  on  the  win- 
dow of  her  castle : 

"  From  the  top  of  all  my  trust 
Mishap  hath  laid  me  in  the  dust." 

The  Queen  Dowager  of  Navarre  was  offered  for  her  wed- 
ding-day a  costly  and  beautiful  pair  of  gloves,  and  she  put 
them  on,  but  they  were  poisoned  gloves  and  they  took  her 
life.  Better  a  bare  hand  of  cold  privation  than  a  warm  and 
poisoned  glove  of  ruinous  success. 

IS   IT   WELL  WITH   THY   SOUL? 

A  man  may  be  sound  in  body,  and  he  may  have  luxuriant 
investments,  and  have  high  social  position,  and  )'ct  instead 
of  it  being  well  witli  him  there  may  be  everlasting  diseases 
wasting  his  soul,  and  awfull)-  and  overwhelm ingly  it  may  be 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  399 

ill  with  him.  All  those  estates  will  go  out  of  your  hands, 
all  these  friends  will  vanish  from  your  earthly  association  ; 
but  God  has  planted  in  you  a  light  which  will  burn  on  after 
the  last  ember  of  a  consuming  world  is  trampled  out  and  ex- 
tinguished. 

"  There  is  a  life  that  always  lives, 
There  is  a  death  that  never  dies." 

Considering  the  fact  that  you  are  so  invested,  and  that 
eternity  presses  on  toward  you,  and  that  soon  your  naked 
soul  will  step  out  and  up  into  the  presence  of  the  eternal 
God  in  judgment,  ought  not  the  question  of  my  text  re- 
sound through  the  deepest  depths  of  your  immortal  nature 
while  I  cry  out  :  "  Is  it  well  with  thy  soul?"  You  have  an 
undefined  longing  in  your  soul.  You  tried  money-making; 
that  did  not  satisfy  you.  You  tried  office  under  Govern- 
ment ;  that  did  not  satisfy  you.  You  tried  pictures  and 
sculptures ;  but  works  of  art  did  not  satisfy  you.  You  are 
as  much  discontented  with  this  life  as  tJic  celebrated  FrencJi 
autJior,  who  felt  that  he  could  not  any  longer  endure  the 
misfortunes  of  the  world,  and  who  said:  "At  four  o'clock 
this  afternoon  I  shall  put  an  end  to  my  own  existence. 
Meanwhile,  I  must  toil  on  up  to  that  time  for  the  susten- 
ance of  my  family."  And  he  wrote  on  until  the  clock 
struck  four,  when  he  folded  up  his  manuscript,  and,  by  his 
own  hand,  concluded  his  earthly  life.  Grace  alone  satisfies 
the  soul  with  a  high,  deep,  all-absorbing,  and  eternal  satis- 
faction. It  comes,  and  it  offers  the  most  unfortunate  man 
so  much  of  this  world  as  is  best  for  him,  and  throws  all 
heaven  into  the  bargain. 

THE  TWO   SCALES. 

The  Avealth  of  Croesus,  and  of  all  the  Stewarts,  and  of  all 
the  Barings,  and  all  the  Rothschilds  is  only  a  poor,  miserable 
shilling  compared  with  the  eternal  fortunes  that  Christ  offers 
you  to-day.  In  the  far  East,  there  was  a  king  who  used  once 
a  year  to  get  on  one  scale,  while  on  the  other  scale  were 
placed    gold    and    silver  and    gems ;    indeed,    enough   were 


400  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

placed  there  to  balance  the  king ;  then,  at  the  close  of  the 
weighing,  all  those  treasures  were  thrown  among  the  popu- 
lace. But  Christ  to-day  steps  on  one  scale,  and  on  the 
other  arc  all  the  treasures  of  the  universe,  and  He  says; 
"All  are  yours — all  height,  all  depth,  all  length,  all  breadth, 
all  eternity;  all  are  yours." 

THE   PROPERTY   SOLD. 

When  a  man  passes  himself  over  to  the  world  he  parts 
with  his  whole  nature  in  four  instalments.  He  pays  down 
the  first  instalment,  and  one  fourth  of  his  nature  is  gone. 
He  pays  down  the  second  instalment,  and  one  half  of  his  nature 
is  gone.  He  pays  down  the  third  instalment,  and  three 
quarters  of  his  nature  are  gone  ;  and  after  many  years  have 
gone  by  he  pays  down  the  fourth  instalment,  and,  lo !  his 
entire  nature  is  gone.  Then  he  comes  up  to  the  world  and 
says  :  "  Good  morning.  I  have  delivered  to  you  the  goods.  I 
have  passed  over  to  you  my  body,  my  mind,  and  my  soul  ; 
and  I  have  come  now  to  collect  the  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars."  "Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars?" says  the  world.  "What  do  you  mean?"  "Well," 
you  say,  "  I  come  to  collect  the  money  you  owe  me,  and  I 
expect  you  now  to  fulfil  your  part  of  the  contract."  "  But," 
says  the  world,  "/  have  failed.  lam  bankrupt.  I  can- 
not possibly  pay  that  debt.  I  have  not  for  a  long  while  ex- 
pected to  pay  it."  "  Well,"  you  then  say,  "  give  me  back 
the  goods."  "  Oh,  no,"  says  the  world  ;  "  they  are  all  gone. 
I  cannot  give  them  back  to  you."  And  there  you  stand  on 
the  confines  of  eternity,  your  spiritual  character  gone,  stag- 
gering under  the  consideration  that  you  have  sold  yourself 
for  nought. 

I  tell  you  the  world  is  a  liar  ;  it  does  not  keep  its  prom- 
ises. It  is  a  cheat,  and  it  fleeces  everything  it  can  put  its 
hands  on.  It  is  a  bogus  world.  It  is  a  six-thousand-year- 
old  swindle.  Even  if  it  pays  the  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  for  which  you  contracted,  it  pays  them  in 
bonds  that  will  not  be  worth  anything  in  a  little  while.     Just 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  4OI 

as  a  man  may  pay  down  ten  thousand  dollars  in  hard  cash 
and  get  for  it  worthless  scrip — so  the  world  passes  over  to 
you  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  that  shape 
which  will  not  be  worth  a  farthing  to  you  a  thousandth  part 
of  a  second  after  you  are  dead.  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  it  will  help 
to  bury  me,  anyhow."     Yes,  my  brother,  that  is  all. 

Post  mortem  emoluments  are  of  no  use  to  you.  The 
treasures  of  this  world  will  not  pass  current  in  the  future 
world  ;  and  if  all  the  wealth  of  the  Bank  of  England  were  put 
in  the  pocket  of  your  shroud,  and  you  in  the  midst  of  the 
Jordan  of  death  were  asked  to  pay  three  cents  for  your  fer- 
riage, you  could  not  do  it.  There  comes  a  moment  in  your 
existence  beyond  which  all  earthly  values  fail  ;  and  many  a 
man  has  wakened  up  in  such  a  time  to  find  that  he  has  sold 
out  for  eternity,  and  has  nothing  to  show  for  it.  I  should 
as  soon  think  of  going  to  Chatham  Street  to  buy  silk  pocket- 
handkerchiefs  with  no  cotton  in  them,  as  to  go  to  this  world 
expecting  to  find  any  permanent  happiness.  It  has  deceived 
and  deluded  every  man  that  has  ever  put  his  trust  in  it. 

BUSINESS   CLOSED. 

I  went  to  see  a  worldling  die.  As  I  went  into  the  hall  I 
saw  its  floor  was  tessellated,  and  its  wall  was  a  picture-gal- 
lery. I  found  his  death-chamber  adorned  with  tapestry  un- 
til it  seemed  as  if  the  clouds  of  the  setting  sun  had  settled 
in  the  room.  The  man  had  given  forty  years  to  the  world — 
his  wit,  his  time,  his  genius,  his  talent,  his  soul.  Did  the 
world  come  in  to  stand  by  his  death-bed,  and,  clearing  off  the 
phials  of  bitter  medicine,  put  down  any  compensation  ?  Oh, 
no !  The  world  does  not  like  sick  and  dying  people,  and 
leaves  them  in  the  lurch.  It  ruined  this  man,  and  then  left 
him.  He  had  a  magnificent  funeral.  All  the  ministers  wore 
scarfs,  and  there  were  forty-three  carriages  in  line  ;  but  the 
departed  man  appreciated  not  the  obsequies. 

Cyrus,  the  Conqueror,  thought  for  a  little  while  that  he 
was  making  a  fine  thing  out  of  this  world,  and  yet  before  he 
came  to  his  grave  he  wrote  out  this  pitiful  epitaph  for  his 


402  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

monument :  "  I  .irn  Cyrus.  I  occupied  the  Persian  Empire. 
I  was  king  over  Asia.  Begrudge  me  not  this  monument." 
But  the  world  in  after  years  ploughed  up  his  sepulchre. 
What  difference  now  does  it  make  to  Napoleon  III.  whether 
he  triumphed  or  surrendered  at  Sedan  ?  whether  he  lived  at 
the  Tuillcrics  or  at  Chiselhust,  whether  he  was  Emperor  or 
exile  ?  They  laid  him  out  in  his  coffin  in  the  dress  of  a  field- 
marshal.  Did  that  give  him  any  better  chance  for  the  next 
world  than  if  he  had  been  laid  out  in  a  plain  shroud? 

Oh,  ye  who  have  tried  this  world,  is  it  a  satisfactory  por- 
tion ?  Would  you  advise  your  friends  to  make  the  invest- 
ment? No.  "  Ye  have  sold  yourselves  for  nought."  Your 
conscience  went.  Your  hope  went.  Your  Bible  went.  Your 
heaven  went.  Your  God  went.  When  a  sheriff  under  a  writ 
from  the  courts  sells  a  man  out,  the  officer  generally  leaves  a 
few  chairs  and  a  bed,  and  a  few  cups  and  knives ;  but  in 
this  awful  vendue  in  which  you  have  been  engaged  the  auc- 
tioneer's mallet  has  come  down  upon  body,  mind,  and  soul  : 
Going!     Gone! 


A   BAD   BARGAIN. 

History  tells  us  of  one  who  resolved  that  he  would  have 
all  his  senses  gratified  at  one  and  the  same  time,  and  he  ex- 
pended thousands  of  dollars  on  each  sense.  He  entered  a 
room,  and  there  were  the  first  musicians  of  the  land  pleasing 
his  ear,  and  there  were  fine  pictures  fascinating  his  eye,  and 
there  were  costly  aromatics  regaling  his  nostril,  and  there 
were  the  richest  meats,  and  wines,  and  fruits,  and  confections 
pleasing  the  appetite,  and  there  was  a  soft  couch  of  sinful 
indulgence  on  which  he  reclined  ;  and  the  man  declared  af- 
terward that  he  would  give  ten  times  what  he  had  given  if 
he  could  have  one  week  of  such  enjoyment,  even  though  he 
lost  his  soul  by  it.  Ah  I  that  was  the  rub.  He  did  lose  his 
soul  by  it  ! 


GOSPEL    TRUi^rPET  PEALS.  403 

FAMOUS   VENDORS, 

The  world  clapped  its  hands  and  stamped  its  feet  in  hon- 
or of  Charles  Lamb  ;  but  what  does  he  say  ?  "I  walk  up  and 
down,  thinking  I  am  happy,  but  feeling  I  am  not."  Call  the 
roll,  and  be  quick  about  it.  Samuel  Johnson,  the  learned  ! 
Happy?  "No.  I  am  afraid  I  shall  some  day  get  crazy." 
William  Hazlitt,  the  great  essayist !  Happy  1  "No.  I  have 
been  for  two  hours  and  a  half  going  up  and  down  Paternos- 
ter Row,  with  a  volcano  in  my  breast."  Smollet,  the  witty 
author!  "  No.  I  am  sick  of  praise  and  blame,  and  I  wish 
to  God  that  I  had  such  circumstances  around  me  that  I 
could  throw  my  pen  into  oblivion."  Buchanan,  the  world- 
renowned  writer,  exiled  from  his  own  country,  appealing  to 
Henry  Vni.  for  protection  !  Happy?  "No.  Over  moun- 
tains covered  with  snow,  and  through  valleys  flooded  with 
rain,  I  come  a  fugitive."  Moliei'e,  the  popular  dramatic  au- 
thor !  Happy?  "No.  That  wretch  of  an  actor  just  now 
recited  four  of  my  lines  without  the  proper  accent  and  ges- 
ture. To  have  the  children  of  my  brain  so  hung,  drawn,  and 
quartered,  tortures  me  like  a  condemned  spirit." 

Ah  !  my  brother,  the  soul  that  you  have  bartered  for  less 
than  a  mess  of  pottage,  what  is  it  worth  ?  How  could  you 
do  so?  Did  you  think  that  your  soul  was  a  mere  trinket, 
which  for  a  few  pennies  you  could  buy  in  a  toy  shop  ?  Did 
you  think  that  your  soul,  if  once  lost,  might  be  found  again, 
if  you  went  out  with  torches  and  lanterns  ?  Did  you  think 
that  your  soul  was  short-lived,  and  that,  panting,  it  would  soon 
lie  down  for  extinction  ?  Or  had  you  no  idea  what  your  soul 
was  worth  ?  Did  you  ever  put  your  forefinger  on  its  eternal 
pulses  ?  Have  you  never  felt  the  quiver  of  its  peerless  wing  ? 
Have  you  not  known  that,  after  leaving  the  body,  the  first 
step  of  your  soul  reaches  to  the  stars,  and  the  next  step  to 
the  furthest  outposts  of  God's  universe,  and  that  it  will  not 
die  until  the  day  when  the  everlasting  Jehovah  expires  ?  Oh. 
my  brother,  what  possessed  you  that  you  should  part 
with  your  soul  so  cheap  ?  "Ye  have  sold  yourselves  for 
nought." 


404  TKUMPEr  PEALS. 


A  SUIT    FOR    REPLEVIN. 


I  want  to  engage  in  a  litigation  for  the  recovery  of  that 
soul  of  yours.  I  want  to  show  that  you  have  been  cheated 
out  of  it.  I  want  to  prove,  as  I  will,  that  you  were  crazy  on 
that  subject,  and  that  the  world,  under  such  circumstances, 
has  no  right  to  take  the  title-deed  from  you  ;  and  if  you  will 
join  me  I  shall  get  a  decree  from  the  High  Chancery  Court 
of  Heaven  reinstating  you  into  the  possession  of  your  soul. 
"  Oh,"  you  say,  '*  I  am  afraid  of  law-suits  ;  they  are  so  ex- 
pensive, and  I  cannot  pay  the  cost."  Then  have  you  for- 
gotten the  last  half  of  my  text  ?  "  Ye  have  sold  yourselves 
for  nought ;  and  ye  shall  be  redeemed  luitJioiit  moneys 

Money  is  a  good  for  a  great  many  things,  but  it  cannot 
do  anything  in  this  matter  of  the  soul.  You  cannot  buy 
your  way  through.  Dollars  and  pounds  sterling  mean  no- 
thing at  the  gate  of  mercy.  If  you  could  buy  your  salva- 
tion, heaven  would  be  a  great  speculation,  an  extension  of 
Wall  Street.  Bad  men  would  go  up  and  buy  out  the  place, 
and  leave  us  to  shift  for  ourselves.  But  as  money  is  not  a 
lawful  tender,  what  is  ?  I  will  answer,  Blood  I  Whose  ? 
Are  we  to  go  through  the  slaughter  ?  Oh,  no ;  it  wants 
richer  blood  than  ours.  It  wants  a  king's  blood.  It 
must  be  poured  from  royal  arteries.  It  must  be  a  sinless 
torrcni:.  But  where  is  the  king  ?  I  see  a  great  many 
thrones  and  a  great  many  occupants,  yet  none  seem  to 
be  coming  down  to  the  rescue.  But  after  awhile  the 
clock  of  night  in  Bethlehem  strikes  twelve,  and  the  silver 
pendulum  of  a  star  swings  across  the  sky,  and  I  see  the  King 
of  Heaven  rising  up,  and  He  descends,  and  steps  down  from 
star  to  star,  and  from  cloud  to  cloud,  lower  and  lower,  until 
He  touches  the  sheep-covered  hills,  and  then  on  to  another 
hill,  this  last  skull-covered ;  and  there,  at  the  sharp  stroke  of 
persecution,  a  rill  incarnadine  trickles  down,  and  we  who 
could  not  be  redeemed  by  money  are  redeemed  by  precious 
and  imperial  blood. 

We  have  in  this  day  profcssctl  Christians  who  are  so 
rarefied  and  etherealized  that  they  do  not  want  a  religion  of 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  405 

blood.  What  do  you  want?'  You  seem  to  want  a  religion 
of  brains.  The  Bible  says,  "  In  the  blood  is  the  life."  No 
atonement  without  blood.  Ought  not  the  apostle  to  know  ? 
What  did  he  say  ?  "  Ye  are  redeemed  not  with  corruptible 
things,  such  as  silver  and  gold  ;  but  by  the  precious  blood 
of  Christ./  You  put  your  lancet  into  the  arm  of  our  holy 
religion  and  withdraw  the  blood,  and  you  leave  it  a  mere 
corpse,  fit  only  for  the  grave.  Why  did  God  command  the 
priests  of  old  to  strike  the  knife  into  the  kid,  and  the  goat, 
and  the  pigeon,  and  the  bullock,  and  the  lamb?  It  was  so 
that  when  the  blood  rushed  out  from  these  animals  on  the 
floor  of  the  ancient  tabernacle  the  people  should  be  com- 
pelled to  think  of  the  coming  carnage  of  the  Son  of  God, 
No  blood,  no  atonement. 

THE  ACCUSING  BLOOD. 

I  think  that  God  intended  to  impress  us  with  the  vivid, 
ness  of  that  color.  The  green  of  the  grass,  the  blue  of  the 
sky,  would  not  have  startled  and  aroused  us  like  this  deep 
crimson.  It  is  as  if  God  had  said  :  "  Now,  sinner,  wake  up 
and  see  what  the  Saviour  endured  for  you.  This  is  not 
water.  This  is  not  wine.  It  is  blood.  It  is  the  blood 
of  my  own  Son.  It  is  the  blood  of  the  Immaculate.  It  is 
the  blood  of  a  God."  Without  the  shedding  of  blood  is  no 
remission.  There  has  been  many  a  man  who  in  courts  of 
law  has  pleaded  "  not  guilty,"  who  nevertheless  has  been 
condemned  because  there  was  blood  found  on  his  hands,  or 
blood  found  in  his  room  ;  and  what  shall  we  do  in  the  last 
day  if  it  be  found  that  we  have  recrucified  the  Lord  of 
Glory,  and  have  never  repented  of  it  ?  You  must  believe  in 
the  blood  or  die.  No  escape.  Unless  you  let  the  sacrifice 
of  Jesus  Christ  go  in  your  stead  you  yourself  must  suffer. 
It  is  either  Christ's  blood  or  your  blood. 

THE   COST    OF   RECOVERY. 

"Oh,"  says  someone,  "the  thought  of  blood  sickens 
me."     Good.     God  intended  it  to  sicken  you  with  your  sin. 


406  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Do  not  act  as  though  you  had  nothing  to  do  with  that  Cal 
varean  massacre.  You  had.  Your  sins  were  the  imple- 
ments of  torture.  Those  implements  were  not  made  of 
steel,  and  iron,  and  wood,  so  much  as  out  of  your  sins. 
Guilty  of  this  homicide,  and  this  regicide,  and  tliis  deicide, 
confess  )Our  guilt  to-day.  Ten  thousand  voices  of  heaxen 
bring  in  the  verdict  against  you  of  guilty,  guilty.  Prepare 
to  die,  or  believe  in  that  blood.  Stretch  yourself  out  for  the 
sacrifice,  or  accept  the  Saviour's  sacrifice.  Do  not  fling 
away  your  one  chance. 

It  seems  to  me  as  if  all  heaven  were  trying  to  bid  in  your 
soul.  The  first  bid  it  makes  is  the  tears  of  Christ  at  the 
tomb  of  Lazarus  ;  but  that  is  not  a  high  enough  price.  The 
next  bid  heaven  makes  is  the  sweat  of  Gethsemane ;  but  it 
is  too  cheap  a  price.  The  next  bid  heaven  makes  seems  to 
be  the  whipped  back  of  Pilate's  hall  ;  but  it  is  not  a  high 
enough  price.  Can  it  be  possible  that  heaven  cannot  buy 
you  in  ?  Heaven  tries  once  more.  It  says  ;  "  I  bid  this  time 
for  that  man's  soul  the  tortures  of  Christ's  martyrdom,  the 
blood  on  His  temple,  the  blood  on  His  cheek,  the  blood  on 
His  chin,  the  blood  on  His  hand,  the  blood  on  His  side,  the 
blood  on  His  knee,  the  blood  on  His  foot — the  blood  in 
drops,  the  blood  in  rills,  the  blood  in  pools  coagulated  be- 
neath the  cross  ;  the  blood  that  wet  the  tips  of  the  soldiers' 
spears,  the  blood  that  plashed  warm  in  the  faces  of  His  ene- 
mies." Glory  to  God,  that  bid  wins  it  I  The  highest  price 
that  was  ever  paid  for  anything  was  paid  for  your  soul. 
Nothing  could  buy  it  but  blood  !  The  estranged  property 
is  bought  back.  Take  it.  "  Ye  have  sold  yourselves  for 
nought;  and  ye  shall  be  redeemed  without  money,"  Christ, 
the  surety,  paying  your  debts;  Christ,  the  divine  Cyrus, 
loosening  your  Babylonish  captivity. 

SAVINC;    POWER. 

The  grace  of  God  is  able  to  convert  a  soul.  People 
laughed  at  the  missionaries  in  Madagascar  because  they 
preached    ten  }'ears    without    one    convert  ;  but    there  are 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  407 

thirty-three  thousand  converts  in  Madagascar  to-day.  Peo- 
ple laughed  at  Dr.  Judson,  the  Baptist  missionary,  because 
he  kept  on  preaching  in  Burmah  five  years  without  a  single 
convert  ;  but  there  are  twenty  thousand' Baptists  in  Burmah 
to-day.  People  laughed  at  Dr.  Morrison,  in  China,  for 
preaching  there  seven  years  without  a  single  conversion  ; 
but  there  are  fifteen  thousand  Christians  in  China  to-day. 
People  laughed  at  the  missionaries  for  preaching  at  Tahiti 
for  fifteen  years  without  a  single  conversion,  and  at  the  mis- 
sionaries for  preaching  in  Bengal  seventeen  years  without  a 
single  conversion  ;  yet  in  all  those  lands  there  are  multitudes 
of  Christians  to-day.  But  why  go  so  far  to  find  evidences 
of  the  Gospel's  power  to  save  a  soul  ?  "  We  are  witnesses." 
We  have  been  as  really  changed  as  Gourgis,  the  heathen, 
who  went  into  a  prayer-meeting  with  a  dagger  and  a  gun, 
to  disturb  the  meeting  and  destroy  it,  but  the  next  day  was 
found  crying  :  "  Qh  !  my  great  sins !  Oh !  my  great  Saviour  !" 
and  for  eleven  years  preached  the  Gospel  of  Christ  to  his  fel- 
low mountaineers,  the  last  words  on  his  dying  lips  being 
"  Free  grace  !"     Oh,  it  was  free  grace  ! 

"  Why,"  said  one  upon  whom  the  great  change  had  come, 
'*  sir,  I  feel  just  as  though  I  were  somebody  else."  There  was 
a  sea-captain  who  swore  all  the  way  from  New  York  to  Ha- 
vana, and  from  Havana  to  San  Francisco,  and  when  he  was 
in  port  he  was  worse  than  when  he  was  on  sea.  What  power 
was  it  that  washed  his  tongue  clean  of  profanities,  and 
made  him  a  psalm-singer  ?  Conversion  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
There  are  thousands  of  people  to-day  who  are  no  more  what 
they  once  were  than  a  water-lily  is  nightshade,  or  a  morning 
lark  is  a  vulture,  or  day  is  night. 

ALL   OF   GRACE. 

One  of  John  Bunyan's  great  books  is  entitled,  "  Abound- 
ing Grace.''  "  It  is  all  of  grace  that  I  am  saved"  has  been 
on  the  lips  of  hundreds  of  dying  Christians.  TJie  boy  Sammy 
was  right  when,  being  examined  for  admission  into  church 
membership,  he  was   asked,  "Whose  work   was  your  salva- 


408  '1 RUMPET  PEALS. 

tion  ?"  and  he  answered,  "  Part  mine  and  part  God's." 
Then  the  examiner  asked,  "  What  part  did  you  do, 
Sammy?"  and  the  answer  was,  "  1  opposed  God  all  I  could, 
and  He  did  the  rest !"  O,  the  height  of  it,  the  depth  of  it, 
the  length  of  it,  the  breadth  of  it, — the  grace  of  God!  Grace, 
that  saved  the  publican,  that  saved  Lydia,  that  saved  the 
dying  thief,  that  saved  the  jailer,  that  saved  me.  But  the 
riches  of  that  grace  will  not  be  fully  understood  until  Heaven 
breaks  in  upon  the  soul. 

Among  the  thousands  of  words  in  the  language,  there  is 
no  more  queenly  word.  It  means  free  and  unmerited  kind- 
ness. My  text  has  no  monopoly  of  the  word.  One  hun- 
dred and  twenty-nine  times  does  the  Bible  eulogize  grace. 
It  is  a  door  swung  wide  open  to  let  into  the  pardon  of  God 
all  the  millions  who  choose  to  enter  it.  John  Newton  sang 
of  it: 

"  Amazing  grace,  how  sweet  the  sound 
That  saved  a  wretch  like  nic!" 

Philip  Doddridge  put  it  into  hymnologywhen  he  wrote: 

"  Grace,  'tis  a  charming  sound, 

Harmonious  to  the  ear  ; 
Heaven  with  the  echo  shall  resound, 

And  all  the  world  shall  hear." 

Yes,  grace,  free  grace,  sovereign  grace,  omnipotent  grace ! 

I  present  you,  not  an  abstraction  or  a  chimera,  or  any- 
thing like  guess-work,  but  affidavits  of  the  best  i/icn  and 
zvoincn,  living  and  dead.  Two  witnesses  in  court  will  estab- 
lish a  fact.  Here  are  not  two  witnesses,  but  thousands  of 
witnesses — millions  of  witnesses,  and  in  heaven  a  great  mul- 
titude of  witnesses  that  no  man  can  number,  testifying  that 
there  is  power  in  this  religion  to  convert  the  soul,  to  give 
comfort  in  trouble,  and  to  afford  composure  in  the  last 
hour. 

If  ten  men  should  come  to  you  when  you  are  sick  with 
appaling  sickness,  and  say  they  had  the  same  sickness,  and 
took  a  certain  medicine,  and  it  cured  them,  )'ou  would  prob- 
ably take  it.      Now,  suppose  ten  other  men  should  come  up 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS  4O9 

and  say,  "We  don't  believe  that  there  is  anything  in  that 
medicine."     "  Well,"  I  say,  "  have  you  tried  it  ?" 

"  No.  I  never  tried  it,  but  I  don't  believe  there  is  any- 
thing in  it."  Of  course  you  discredit  their  testimony.  The 
sceptic  may  come  and  say,  "  There  is  no  power  in  your  re- 
ligion." "  Have  you  ever  tried  it  ?"  "  No,  no."  "  Then 
avaunt !"  Let  me  take  the  testimony  of  the  millions  of  souls 
that  have  been  converted  to  God,  and  comforted  in  trial, 
and  solaced  in  the  last  hour.  We  will  take  their  testimony 
as  they  cry,  "  We  are  witnesses  !" 

Some  time  ago  Professor  Henry,  of  Washington,  discov- 
ered a  new  star,  and  the  tidings  sped  by  submarine  tele- 
graph, and  all  the  observatories  of  Europe  were  watching  for 
that  new  star.  Oh,  hearer,  looking  out  through  the  dark- 
ness of  thy  soul,  canst  thou  see  a  bright  light  beaming  on 
thee?  "Where?"  you  say,  "where?  How  can  I  find  it  ?" 
Look  along  by  the  line  of  the  Cross  of  the  Son  of  God.  Do 
you  not  see  it  trembling  with  all  tenderness  and  beaming 
with  all  hope  ?     It  is  the  star  of  Bethlehem. 

"  Deep  horror  then  my  vitals  froze, 

Death-struck  I  ceased  the  tide  to  stem, 

When  suddenly  a  star  arose — 
It  was  the  Star  of  Bethlehem." 


SOUL-HUNTING. 

In  our  day,  hunting  is  a  sport ;  but  in  the  lands  and  the 
times  infested  with  wild  beasts,  it  was  a  matter  of  life  or 
death  with  the  people.  It  was  very  different  from  going  out 
on  a  sunshiny  afternoon  with  a  patent  breech-loader,  to  shoot 
reed-birds  on  the  flats,  when  Pollux  and  Achilles  and  Dio- 
medes  went  out  to  clear  the  land  of  lions  and  tigers  and 
bears.  My  text  sets  forth  Nimrod  as  a  hero  when  it  pre- 
sents him  with  broad  shoulders  and  shaggy  apparel  and  sun- 
browned  face,  and  arm  bunched  with  muscle — "  a  mighty 
hunter  before  the  Lord."  I  think  he  used  the  bow  and  the 
arrow  with  great  success,  practicing  archery. 

I  have  thought  that  if  it  is  such  a  grand  thine:  and  such  a 


4IO  TRUMTET  PEALS. 

brave  thing  to  clear  wild  beasts  out  of  a  country,  is  it  not 
a  better  and  braver  thing  to  hunt  down  and  destroy  those 
great  evils  of  society  that  are  stalking  the  land  with  fierce 
eye  and  bloody  paw  and  sharp  tusk  and  quick  spring?  I 
have  wondered  if  there  is  not  such  a  thing  as  soul-hunting, 
by  which  those  who  have  been  flying  from  the  truth,  may  be 
captured  for  God  and  heaven.  The  Lord  Jesus,  in  His  ser- 
mon used  the  art  of  angling  for  an  illustration  when  He  said, 
"  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men."  And  so  I  think  I  have 
authority  for  using  hunting  as  an  illustration  of  Gospel  truth  ; 
and  I  pray  God  that  there  may  be  many  a  man  in  this  con- 
gregation who  shall  begin  to  study  Gospel  archery,  of  whom 
it  may,  after  a  while,  be  said,  "  He  was  a  mighty  hunter 
before  the  Lord.''  If  you  want  to  succeed  in  hunting,  be 
sure  of  your  weapon.  There  was  something  very  fascinating 
about  the  archery  of  olden  times.  Perhaps  you  do  not  know 
what  they  could  do  with  the  bow  and  arrow.  Why,  the 
chief  battles  fought  by  the  English  Plantagenets  were  with 
the  long  bow.  They  would  take  the  arrow  of  polished  wood, 
and  feather  it  with  the  plume  of  a  bird,  and  then  it  would 
fly  from  the  bow-string  of  plaited  silk.  The  broad  fields  of 
Agincourt,  and  Solway  Moss,  and  Neville's  Cross,  heard  the 
loud  thrum  of  the  archer's  bow-string.  Now,  my  Christian 
friends,  we  have  a  mightier  weapon  than  that.  It  is  the 
arrow  of. the  Gospel;  it  is  a  sharp  arrow;  it  is  a  straight 
arrow ;  it  is  feathered  from  the  wing  of  the  dove  of  God's 
Spirit ;  it  flies  from  a  bow  made  out  of  the  wood  of  the 
cross.  As  far  as  I  can  estimate  or  calculate,  it  has  brought 
down  four  hundred  million  souls.  Paul  knew  how  to  bring 
the  notch  of  that  arrow  on  to  that  bow-string,  and  its  whirr 
was  heard  through  the  Corinthian  theatres,  and  through  the 
court-room,  until  the  knees  of  Felix  knocked  together.  It 
was  that  arrow  that  .stuck  in  Luther's  heart  when  he  cried 
out,  "Oh,  my  sins!  Oh,  my  sins!"  If  it  strike  a  man  in 
the  head,  it  kills  his  skepticism  ;  if  it  strike  him  in  the  heel, 
it  will  turn  his  step;  if  it  strike  him  in  the  heart,  he  throws 
up  his  hands,  as  did  one  of  old  when  woundcil  in  the  battle, 
crying,  "Oh,  Galilean,  Thou  hast  conquered." 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.'  4II 

In  the  armory  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  there  are  old 
corselets  which  show  that  the  arrow  of  the  English  used  to 
go  through  the  breast-plate,  through  the  body  of  the  warrior, 
and  out  through  the  back-plate.  What  a  symbol  of  that 
Gospel  w^hich  is  sharper  than  a  two-edged  sword,  piercing  to 
the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  body,  and  of  the  joints  and 
marrow  !  Would  to  God  we  had  more  faith  in  that  Gospel ! 
The  humblest  man  in  this  house,  if  he  had  enough  faith  in 
him,  could  bring  a  hundred  souls  to  Jesus — perhaps  five 
hundred.  Just  in  proportion  as  this  age  seems  to  believe 
less  and  less  in  it,  I  believe  more  and  more  in  it.  What  are 
men  about  that  they  will  not  accept  their  own  deliverance? 
There  is  nothing  proposed  by  men  that  can  do  anything  like 
this  Gospel. 

GOSPEL  WEAPON. 

The  full  power  of  the  Gospel  has  not  yet  been  touched. 
As  a  sportsman  throws  up  his  hand  and  catches  the  ball 
flying  through  the  air,  just  so  easily  will  this  Gospel,  after  a 
while,  catch  this  round  world  flying  from  its  orbit,  and  bring 
it  back  to  the  heart  of  Christ.  Give  it  full  swing,  and  it  will 
pardon  every  sin,  heal  every  wound,  cure  every  trouble, 
emancipate  every  slave,  and  ransom  every  nation.  Ye 
Christian  men  and  women  who  go  out  this  afternoon  to  do 
Christian  work,  as  you  go  into  the  Sunday-schools,  and  the 
lay  preaching  stations,  and  the  penitentiaries,  and  the 
asylums,  I  want  you  to  feel  that  you  bear  in  your  hand  a 
weapon,  compared  with  which  the  lightning  has  no  speed, 
and  avalanches  have  no  heft,  and  the  thunderbolts  of  heaven 
have  no  power;  it  is  the  arrow  of  the  omnipotent  Gospel. 
Take  careful  aim.  Pull  the  arrow  clear  back  until  the  head 
strikes  the  bow.  Then  let  it  fly.  And  may  the  slain  be 
many ! 

WHERE   TO   HUNT. 

If  you  want  to  be  skilful  in  spiritual  hunting  you  must 
hunt  in  unfrequented  and  secluded  places.     Why  does  the 


412  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

hunter  n-o  three  or  four  days  in  the  Pennsylvania  forests  or 
over  Raquettc  Lake  into  the  wilds  of  the  Adirondack's?  It 
is  the  only  way  to  do.  The  deer  are  shy,  and  one  "  bang" 
of  the  gun  clears  the  forest.  From  the  California  stage  you 
see,  as  you  go  over  the  plains,  here  and  there  a  coyote 
trotting  along,  almost  within  range  of  the  gun — sometimes 
quite  within  range  of  it.  No  one  cares  for  that ;  it  is  worth- 
less. Tlic  good  game  is  hidden  dLVid.  s,QQ\.\x6i<i6..  Every  hunter 
knows  that.  So,  many  of  the  souls  that  will  be  of  most 
worth  for  Christ,  and  of  most  value  for  the  Church,  are  se- 
cluded. They  do  not  come  in  your  way.  You  will  have  to 
go  where  they  are.  Yonder  they  are,  down  in  that  cellar, 
yonder  they  are,  up  in  that  garret.  Far  away  from  the  door 
of  any  church,  the  Gospel  arrow  has  not  been  pointed  at 
them.  The  tract  distributor  and  the  city  missionary  some- 
times just  catch  a  glimpse  of  them,  as  a  hunter  through  the 
trees  gets  a  momentary  sight  of  a  partridge  or  roebuck. 

The  trouble  is  u-e  are  waiting  for  the  game  to  come  to  us. 
We  are  not  good  hunters.  We  are  standing  in  Schcrmer- 
horn  Street,  expecting  that  the  timid  antelope  will  come  up 
and  eat  out  of  our  hand.  We  are  expecting  that  the  prairie 
fowl  will  light  on  our  church-steeple.  It  is  not  their  habit. 
If  the  church  should  wait  ten  millions  of  years  for  the  world 
to  come  in  and  be  saved,  it  will  wait  in  vain.  The  world 
will  not  come.  What  the  church  wants  now  is  to  lift  their 
feet  from  damask  ottomans,  and  put  them  in  the  stirrups. 
We  want  a  pulpit  on  wheels.  The  church  wants  not  so 
much  cushions  as  it  wants  saddle-bags  and  arrows.  We  have 
got  to  put  aside  the  gown  and  the  kid-gloves,  and  put  on 
the  hunting-shirt.  We  have  been  fishing  so  long  in  the 
brooks  that  run  under  the  shadow  of  the  church  that  the 
fish  know  us,  and  they  avoid  the  hook,  and  escape  as  soon 
as  we  come  to  the  bank,  while  yonder  is  Upper  Saranac  and 
l^ig  Tupper's  Lake,  where  the  first  swing  of  the  Gospel  net 
would  break  it  for  the  multitude  of  the  fishes.  There  is 
outside  work  to  be  done.  What  is  that  I  see  in  the  back- 
woods? It  is  a  tent.  The  hunters  have  made  a  clearing  and 
camped  out.     Wiiat  tlo  they  care  if  they  have  wet  feet,  or  if 


GOSPEL    1  'R  UMPE  T  PEA  LS.  4 1  3 

they  have  nothing  but  a  pine  branch  for  a  pillow,  or  for  the 
northeast  storm?  If  a  moose  in  the  darkness  steps  into  the 
lake  to  drink,  they  hear  it  right  away.  If  a  loon  cry  in  the 
midnight,  they  hear  it.  So  in  the  service  of  God  we  have 
exposed  work.      We  have  got  to  camp  out  and  rough  it. 

SKILL  IN   HUNTING. 

The  archers  of  old  times  studied  their  art.  They  were 
very  precise  in  the  matter.  The  old  feooks  gave  special 
directions  as  to  how  the  archer  should  go,  and  as  to  what 
an  archer  should  do.  He  must  stand  erect  and  firm,  his  left 
foot  a  little  in  advance  of  his  right  foot.  With  his  left  hand 
he  must  take  hold  of  the  bow  in  the  middle,  and  then,  with 
the  three  fingers  and  the  thumb  of  his  right  hand,  he  should 
lay  hold  of  the  arrow  and  affix  it  to  the  string — so  precise 
was  the  direction  given.  But  how  clumsy  we  are  about  re- 
ligious work  !  How  little  skill  and  care  we  exercise  !  How 
often  our  arrows  miss  the  mark !  Oh,  that  we  might  learn 
the  art  of  doing  good,  and  become  "  mighty  hunters  before 
the  Lord  !" 

If  Mithridates  liked  hunting  so  well  that  for  seven  years 
he  never  went  in-doors,  what  enthusiasm  ought  we  to  have 
who  are  hunting  for  immortal  souls  !  If  Domitian  practiced 
archery  until  he  could  stand  a  boy  down  in  the  Roman 
amphitheatre,  with  a  hand  out,  the  fingers  outstretched, 
and  then  the  king  could  shoot  an  arrow  between  the  fingers 
without  wounding  them,  to  what  drill  and  practice  ought 
not  we  to  subject  ourselves  in  order  to  become  spiritual 
archers  and  "  mighty  hunters  before  the  Lord  !"  The  old 
archers  took  the  bow,  put  one  end  of  it  down  beside  the 
foot,  elevated  the  other  end,  and  it  was  the  rule  that  the 
bow  should  be  just  the  size  of  the  archer;  if  it  were  just  his 
size,  then  he  would  go  into  the  battle  with  confidence.  Let 
me  say  that  your  power  to  project  good  in  the  world  will 
correspond  exactly  to  your  own  spiritual  stature.  In  other 
words,  the  first  thing,  in  preparation  for  Christian  work,  is 
personal  consecration. 


414  TRUMriiT  PEAI.S. 

How  nuich  awkward  Christian  work  there  is  done  in  the 
world!  How  many  good  people  there  arc  who  drive  souls 
away  from  Christ  instead  of  bringing  them  to  Him  I  Relig- 
ious blunderers,  who  upset  more  than  they  right.  Their 
gun  has  a  crooked  barrel,  and  kicks  as  it  goes  off.  They 
are  like  a  clumsy  comrade  who  goes  along  with  skilful  hunt- 
ers— at  the  very  moment  he  ought  to  be  most  quiet,  he  is 
cracking  an  elder  or  falling  over  a  log  and  frightening  away 
the  game. 

Truman  Osbol-ne,  one  of  the  evangelists  who  went 
through  this  country  some  years  ago,  had  a  wonderful  art 
in  the  right  direction.  He  came  to  my  father's  house  one 
day,  and  while  we  were  all  seated  in  the  room,  he  said, 
"Mr.  Talmage,  are  all  your  children  Christians?'  Father 
said,"  Yes,  all  but  Dc  Witt.''  Then  Truman  Osborne  looked 
down  into  the  fireplace,  and  began  to  tell  a  story  of  a  storm 
that  came  on  the  mountains,  and  all  the  sheep  were  in  the 
fold  ;  but  there  was  one  lamb  outside  that  perished  in  the 
storm.  Had  he  looked  me  in  the  eye,  I  should  have  been 
angered  when  he  told  me  that  story ;  but  he  looked  into 
the  fireplace,  and  it  was  so  pathetically  and  beautifully  done 
that  I  never  found  any  peace  until  I  was  inside  the  fold, 
where  the  other  sheep  are. 

If  you  want  to  be  successful  in  spiritual  hunting,  you 
need  not  only  to  bring  down  the  game,  but  bring  the  game 
in.  I  think  one  of  the  most  beautiful  pictures  of  Thorwald- 
sen  is  his  "  Autumn."  It  represents  a  sportsman  coming 
home  and  standing  under  a  grape-vine.  He  has  a  staff  over 
his  shoulder,  and  on  the  other  end  of  that  staff  are  hung  a 
rabbit  and  a  brace  of  birds.  Every  hunter  brings  home  the 
game.  No  one  would  think  of  bringing  down  a  reindeer  or 
whipping  up  a  stream  for  trout,  and  letting  them  lie  in  the 
woods.  At  eventide  the  camp  is  adorned  with  the  treasures 
— beak  and  fin  and  antler. 

If  you  go  out  to  hunt  for  immortal  souls,  not  only  bring 
them  down  under  the  arrow  of  the  Gospel,  but  bring  them 
into  the  Church  of  God,  the  grand  home  and  encampment 
we  have  pitched  this  side  the  skies.      Fetch  them  in,  do  not 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  415 

let  them  lie  out  in  the  open  field.  They  need  our  prayers 
and  sympathies  and  help.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Church  of  God— help.  O  ye  hunters  for  the  Lord  !  not  only 
bring  down  the  game,  but  bring  it  in. 


SOUL-SAVING. 

Near  my  summer  residence  there  is  a  life-saving  station 
on  the  beach.  There  are  all  the  ropes  and  rockets,  the  boats, 
the  machinery,  for  getting  people  off  shipwrecks.  Sum- 
mer before  last  I  saw  there  fifteen  or  twenty  men  who  were 
breakfasting,  after  having  just  escaped  with  their  lives  and 
nothing  more.  Up  and  down  our  coasts  are  built  these  use- 
ful structures,  and  the  mariners  know  it,  and  they  feel  that 
if  they  are  driven  into  the  breakers  there  will  be  apt  from 
shore  to  come  a  rescue.  The  churches  of  God  ought  to  be 
so  many  soul-saving  stations,  not  so  much  to  help  those  who 
are  in  smooth  waters,  as  those  who  have  been  shipwrecked. 
Come,  let  us  run  out  the  life-boats !  And  who  will  man 
them  ? 

I  would  rather,  in  a  mud-scow,  try  to  weather  the  worst 
cyclone  that  ever  swept  up  from  the  Caribbean  than  risk 
my  immortal  soul  in  useless  and  perilous  discussions.  They 
remind  me  of  a  company  of  sailors  standing  on  Ramsgate 
pier-head,  from  which  the  life-boats  are  usually  launched, 
and  coolly  discussing  the  different  style  of  oar-locks,  and 
how  deep  a  boat  ought  to  set  in  the  water,  while  a  hurricane 
is  in  full  blast,  and  there  are  three  steamers  crowded  with 
passengers  going  to  pieces  in  the  offing. 

An  old  tar,  the  muscles  of  his  face  w^orking  with  nervous 
excitement,  cries  out,  "This  is  no  time  to  discuss  such 
things.  Man  the  lifeboat!  Who  will  volunteer?  Out  with 
her  into  the  surf !  Pull,  my  lads,  pull  for  the  wreck  ?  Ha  ! 
ha!  Now  we  have  them.  Let  them  in,  and  lay  them  down 
on  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  Jack,  you  try  to  bring  them  to. 
Put  these  flannels  around  their  hands  and  feet,  and  I  will 
pull  for  the  shore.  God  help  me !  There !  Landed  ! 
Huzza  !"     When  there  are  so  many  struggling  in  the  waves 


4l6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

of  sin  and  sorrow  and  wretchedness,  let  all  else  go  but  salva- 
tion for  time  and  salvation  forever. 

One  Monday  morning,  at  about  two  o'clock,  while  her 
nine  hundred  passengers  were  sound  asleep  in  her  berths, 
dreaming  of  home,  the  steamer  Atlantic  crashed  into  Mars 
Head.  But  see  this  brave  quartermaster  pushing  out  with 
the  life-line  until  he  gets  to  the  rock,  and  see  these  fisher- 
men gathering  up  the  shipwrecked,  and  taking  them  into 
the  cabins,  and  wrapping  them  in  the  flannels  snug  and 
warm  ;  and  see  that  minister  of  the  Gospel  with  three  other 
men  getting  into  a  life-boat  and  pushing  out  for  the  wreck, 
pulling  away  across  the  surf,  and  pulling  away  until  they 
saved  one  more  man,  and  then  getting  back  with  him  to  the 
shore. 

Well,  our  world  has  gone  into  a  worse  shipwreck.  Sin 
drove  it  on  the  rocks.  The  old  ship  has  lurched  and  tossed 
on  the  tempests  of  six  thousand  years.  Out  with  the  life- 
line ! 

RESCUE  THE   PERISHING. 

Why  did  not  that  heroic  minister  of  the  Gospel  of  whom 
I  have  spoken  sit  down  and  take  care  of  those  men  on  the 
beach,  wrapping  them  in  flannels,  kindling  fire  for  them, 
seeing  that  they  got  plenty  of  food  ?  Ah,  he  knew  that  there 
were  others  who  would  do  that !  He  says ;  "  Yonder  are 
men  and  women  freezing  in  the  rigging  of  that  wreck.  Boys, 
launch  the  boat!"  And  now  I  see  the  oar-blades  bend  un- 
der the  strong  pull  ;  but  before  they  reached  the  rigging  a 
woman  was  frozen  and  dead.  She  was  washed  off,  poor 
thing !  But  he  says :  "  There  is  a  man  to  save ;"  and  he 
cries  out :  "  Hold  on  five  minutes  longer  and  I  will  save  you. 
Steady!  Steady!  Give  me  your  hand.  Leap  into  the  life- 
boat. Thank  God,  he  is  saved  !"  So  there  are  those  who 
are  safe  on  the  shore  of  God's  mercy,  but  there  are  some 
who  are  freezing  in  the  rigging  of  sin,  and  surrounded  by 
perilous  storms.  I'ull  awa}%  m}'  lads !  Let  us  reach  them. 
Alas,  one  is  washed  off  and  gone  !     There  is  one  more  to  be 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  417 

saved.  Let  us  push  out  for  that  one.  "  Clutch  the  rope, 
oh  dying  man !  Ckitch  it  as  with  a  death-grip.  Steady 
now  on  the  shppery  places.  Steady !  There !  Saved ! 
Saved  !"  Just  as  I  thought.  For  Christ  has  declared  that 
there  are  some  still  in  the  breakers  who  shall  come  ashore. 

When  the  Schiller  went  down,  out  of  three  hundred  and 
eighty  people  only  forty  were  saved.  When  the  Ville  du 
Havre  went  down,  out  of  three  hundred  and  forty,  about 
fifty  were  saved.  And  out  of  the  soul-wrecked  how  many 
will  get  to  the  shore  of  heaven  ? 

Some  years  ago  there  came  down  a  fierce  storm  on  the 
sea-coast,  and  a  vessel  got  in  the  breakers  and  was  going  to 
pieces.  They  threw  up  some  signals  of  distress,  and  the 
people  on  the  shore  saw  them.  They  put  out  in  a  life-boat.' 
They  came  on,  and  they  saw  the  poor  sailors,  almost  ex- 
hausted, clinging  to  a  raft ;  and  so  afraid  were  the  boatmen 
that  the  men  would  give  up  before  they  got  to  them,  they 
gave  them  three  rounds  of  cheers,  and  cried  :  "  Hold  on, 
there  !  Hold  on !  We'll  save  you  !"  After  a  while  the 
boat  came  up.  One  man  was  saved  by  having  the  boat- 
hook  put  in  the  collar  of  his  coat  ;  and  some  in  one  way, 
and  some  in  another ;  but  they  all  got  into  the  boat. 
"  Now,"  says  the  captain,  "  for  the  shore.  Pull  away  now, 
pull  !"  The  people  on  the  land  were  afraid  the  life-boat  had 
gone  down.  They  said  :  "  How  long  the  boat  stays.  Why, 
it  must  have  been  swamped,  and  they  have  all  perished  to- 
gether." 

But  as  the  boat  swept  through  the  boiling  surf  and  came 
to  the  pier-head,  the  captain,  waved  his  hand  over  the  ex- 
hausted sailors  that  lay  flat  on  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  and 
cried  :  "  All  saved  !     Thank  God  !     All  saved  !" 

Oh  !  shipwrecked  souls,  I  have  come  for  you.  I  cheer 
you  with  this  Gospel  hope.  God  grant  that  we  may  row 
with  you  into  the  harbor  of  God's  mercy.  And  when  the 
glorified  gather  on  the  pier-heads  of  heaven  to  watch  and 
to  listen,  may  we  be  able  to  report  all  saved  !  Young  and 
old,  good  and  bad  !     All  saved  !     Saved  from  sin,  and  death, 


41 8  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  hell.  Saved  for  time.  Saved  for  eternity.  And  so 
shall  it  come  to  pass  that  you  all  escape  safe  to  land. 

If  a  boat  in  any  harbor  should  get  in  distress,  from  the 
men  of  war,  and  from  the  sloops,  and  from  the  steamers,  the 
flying  paddles  would  pull  to  the  rescue.  And  if  now  you 
would  lift  one  signal  of  distress,  all  these  voyagers  of  eternity 
would  bear  down  toward  you  and  bring  you  relief.  But  no. 
You  are  like  a  ship  on  fire  at  sea.  They  keep  the  hatches 
down,  and  the  captain  is  frenzied,  and  he  gives  orders  that 
no  one  hail  the  passing  ships.  He  says,  "  I  shall  either  land 
this  vessel  in  Hamburg  or  on  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  and  I 
don't  care  which."  Yonder  is  a  ship  of  the  White  Star  Line 
passing.  Yonder  one  of  the  National  Line.  Yonder  one 
of  the  Cunard  Line.  Yonder  one  of  the  Inman  Line.  But 
they  know  not  there  is  any  calamity  happening  on  that  one 
vessel.  Oh,  if  the  captain  would  only  put  his  trumpet  to 
his  lip  and  cry  out,  "  Lower  your  boats !  Bear  down  this 
way!  We  are  burning  up!  Fire!  Fire!"  No,  no.  No 
signal  is  given.  If  that  vessel  perishes,  having  hailed  no 
one,  whose  fault  will  it  be?  Will  it  be  the  fault  of  the  ship 
that  hid  its  calamity,  or  will  it  be  the  fault  of  the  vessels 
that,  passing  on  the  high  seas,  would  have  been  glad  to  fur- 
nish relief  if  it  had  been  only  asked  ?  In  other  words,  my 
brother,  if  you  miss  heaven  it  will  be  your  own  fault. 

My  friends,  religion  is  either  a  sham  or  a  tremendous 
reality.  If  it  be  a  sham,  let  us  disband  our  churches  and 
Christian  associations.  If  it  be  a  reality,  then  great  popula- 
tions are  on  the  way  to  the  bar  of  God  unfitted  for  the  or- 
deal, and  what  are  we  doing? 

A  great  sermon  dropped  into  an  audience  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  will  do  its  work;  but  if  this  world  is  ever  to  be 
brought  to  God,  it  will  be  through  little  sermons  preached  by 
private  Christians  to  an  audience  of  one.  The  sister's  letter 
postmarked  at  the  village  ;  the  word  uttered  in  your  hear- 
ing ;  half  of  smiles  and  half  of  tears ;  the  religious  postscript 
to  a  business  letter ;  the  card  left  at  the  door  when  you  had 
some  kind  of  trouble  ;  the  anxious  look  of  someone  across  a 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  419 

church  aisle  while  an  earnest  sermon   was  being  preached, 
swung  you  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 


GOSPEL   SHIP. 

The  great  Gospel  ship  is  the  finest  vessel  in  the  universe 
and  can  carry  more  passengers  than  any  craft  ever  constructed, 
and  you  could  no  more  wreck  it  than  you  could  wreck  the 
throne  of  God  Almighty.  I  wish  all  the  people  would  come 
aboard  of  her.  I  could  not  promise  a  smooth  voyage,  for 
ofttimes  it  will  be  tempestuous,  and  a  chopped  sea,  but  I 
could  promise  safe  arrival  for  all  who  took  passage  on  that 
Great  Eastern,  so  called  by  me  because  its  commander  came 
out  of  the  East,  the  star  of  the  East  a  badge  of  His  authority. 

But  a  vast  multitude  do  not  take  regular  passage.  They 
are  like  those  who  at  Paul's  shipwreck  came  in  on  broken 
pieces  of  the  ship.  There  is  something  about  them  that  ex- 
cites in  me  an  intense  interest.  I  am  not  so  much  inter- 
ested in  those  that  could  swim.  They  got  ashore  as  I  ex- 
pected. A  mile  of  water  is  not  a  very  great  undertaking  for 
a  strong  swimmer.  But  I  cannot  stop  thinking  about  those 
on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship.  Their  theology  broken  in 
pieces,  and  their  life  broken  in  pieces,  and  their  habits  broken 
in  pieces,  and  their  worldly  and  spiritual  prospects  broken  in 
pieces,  and  yet  I  believe  they  are  going  to  reach  the  shining 
shore,  and  I  am  encouraged  by  the  experience  of  those  peo- 
ple who  are  spoken  of  in  the  words,  "  Some  on  broken  pieces 
of  the  ship." 

The  object  I  have  in  view  is  to  encourage  all  those  who 
cannot  take  the  whole  system  of  religion  as  we  believe  it, 
but  who  really  believe  something,  to  come  ashore  on  that 
one  plank.  If  you  can  come  in  on  the  grand  old  ship,  I 
would  rather  have  you  get  aboard,  but  if  you  can  find  only 
a  piece  of  wood  as  long  as  the  human  body,  or  a  piece  as 
wide  as  the  outspread  human  arms,  and  either  of  them  is  a 
piece  of  the  cross,  come  in  on  that  piece.  Come  In  on  that 
one  narrow  beam,  the  beam  of  the  cross.  Let  all  else  go  and 
cling  to  that.     Put  that  under  you,  and  with  the  earnestness 


420  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

of  a  swimmer  struggling  for  his  life  put  out  for  shore.  There 
is  a  great  warm  fire  of  welcome  already  built,  and  already 
many,  who  were  as  far  out  as  you  are,  are  standing  in  its 
genial  and  heavenly  glow.  The  angels  of  God's  rescue  are 
wading  out  into  thesurf  to  clutch  yourhand,  and  they  know 
how  exhausted  you  are,  and  all  the  redeemed  prodigals  of 
heaven  are  on  the  beach  with  new  white  robes  to  clothe  all 
those  who  come  in  on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship. 

I   CAME   IN   ON   A   PLANK. 

I  knew  Christ  was  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  and  that  I  was 
a  sinner,  and  I  got  ashore,  and  so  can  you  if  you  cling  to 
that  plank.  I  was  in  danger  of  being  farther  out  to  sea  than 
any  of  the  two  hundred  and  seventy-six  in  the  Mediterranean 
breakers.  I  floundered  a  long  while  in  the  sea  of  sin  and 
doubt,  and  it  was  as  rough  as  the  Mediterranean  on  the  four- 
teenth night  when  they  threw  the  grain  overboard,  but  I  saw 
there  was  mercy  for  a  sinner,  and  that  plank  I  took,  and  I 
have  been  warming  myself  by  the  bright  fire  on  the  shore 
ever  since.  And  so  may  you.  If  you  have  not  a  whole  ship 
fashioned  in  the  theological  dry  docks  to'bring  you  to  wharf- 
age, you  have  at  least  a  plank :  You  say  "  I  do  not  like  Prince- 
ton theology,  or  New  Haven  theology,  or  Andover  theology." 
I  do  not  ask  you  on  board  either  of  these  great  men-of-war, 
their  portholes  filled  with  the  great  siege-guns  of  ecclesiastical 
battle.  But  I  do  ask  you  to  take  the  one  i)lank  of  the  Gospel 
that  you  do  believe  in  and  strike  out  for  the  pearl-strung  beach 
of  heaven.  You  are  like  a  man  out  there  in  that  Mediter- 
ranean tempest  and  tossed  in  the  Melita-breakers,  refusing 
to  come  ashore  until  he  can  mend  the  pieces  of  the  broken 
ship.  I  hear  him  say  :  "  I  won't  go  in  on  any  of  these  planks 
until  I  know  in  what  part  of  the  ship  they  belong.  When  I 
can  get  the  windlass  in  the  right  place,  and  the  sails  set,  and 
that  keel-piece  where  it  belongs,  and  that  floor  timber  right, 
and  these  ropes  untangled,  I  will  go  ashore.  I  am  an  old 
sailor,  and  know  all  about  ships  for  forty  years,  and  as  soon  as 
I  can  get  the  vessel  afloat  in  good  shape  I  will  come  in."     A 


GOSPEL    TRUMPET  PEALS.  421 

man  drifting  by  on  a  piece  of  wood  overhears  him  and  says : 
"  You  will  drown  before  you  get  that  ship  reconstructed. 
Better  do  as  I  am  doing.  I  know  nothing  about  ships,  and 
never  saw  one  before  I  came  on  board  this,  and  I  cannot 
swim  a  stroke,  but  I  am  going  ashore  on  this  shivered  tim- 
ber." The  man  in  the  offing  while  trying  to  mend  his  ship 
goes  down.  The  man  who  trusted  to  the  plank  is  saved. 
Oh,  my  brother,  let  your  smashed-up  system  of  theology  go 
to  the  bottom  while  you  come  in  on  a  splintered  spar  ! 

I  bethink  myself  that  there  are  some  here  whose  oppor- 
tunity or  whose  life  is  a  mere  wreck,  and  they  have  only  a 
small  piece  left.  You  started  in  youth  with  all  sails  set  and 
everything  promised  a  grand  voyage,  but  you  have  sailed  in 
the  wrong  direction  or  have  foundered  on  a  rock.  You  have 
only  a  fragment  of  time  left.  Then  come  in  on  that  one 
plank. 

The  past  you  cannot  recover.  Get  on  board  that  old 
.ship  you  never  will.  Have  you  only  one  more  year  left,  one 
more  month,  one  more  week,  one  more  day,  one  more  hour 
— come  in  on  that,  and  so  "  escape  safe  to  land." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

Three  Trumpet  Peals. 

It  is  said  that  when  Charlemagne's  host  was  overpowered 
by  three  armies  of  the  Saracens  in  the  Pass  of  Roncesvalles, 
his  warrior,  Roland,  in  terrible  earnestness,  seized  a  trum- 
pet, and  blew  it  with  such  terrific  strength  that  the  opposing 
army  reeled  back  with  terror  ;  but  at  the  third  blast  of  the 
trumpet  it  broke  in  two.  I  see  your  soul  fiercely  assailed  by 
all  the  powers  of  earth  and  hell,  and  I  put  the  trumpet  of 
the  Gospel  to  my  lips  and  blow  it  three  times.  Peal  the  first : 
"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found."  Peal  the  sec- 
ond :  ''Call  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near."  Peal  the 
third  :  "  Now  is  the  accepted  time  ;  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion." Does  not  the  host  of  sin  fall  back  ?  But  the  trum- 
pet does  not,  like  that  of  Roland,  break  in  two.  As  it  was 
handed  down  to  us  from  the  lips  of  our  fathers,  we  hand  it 
down  to  the  lips  of  our  children,  and  tell  them  to  sound  it 
when  we  are  dead.  Hear  the  three  peals,  one  after  an- 
other. 

PEAL   FIRST. 

"Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found." — ISA.  55  :  6. 
What  Paul  was  among  the  apostles,  Isaiah  was  among 
the  prophets.  A  circular  letter.  Standing  on  a  mountain 
of  inspiration,  looking  out  into  the  future,  beholding  Christ 
advancing  and  anxious  that  all  men  might  know  Him  ;  his 
voice  rings  down  the  ages:  "Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He 
may  be  found."  "Oh,"  says  some  one,  "that  was  for  olden 
times."  No,  my  friend.  If  you  have  travelled  in  other 
lands  you  have  taken  a  circular  letter  of  credit  from  some 
banking-house  in  New  York,  ami  in  St.  Petersburg,  or  Ven- 

422 


THREE    TRUMPET  TEALS.  423 

ice,  or  Rome,  or  Antwerp,  or  Brussels,  or  Paris,  you  pre- 
sented that  letter  and  got  financial  help  immediately.  And 
I  want  you  to  understand  that  the  text,  instead  of  being 
appropriate  for  one  age,  or  for  one  land,  is  a  circular  letter 
for  all  ages  and  for  all  lands,  and  wherever  it  is  presented 
for  help,  the  help  comes :  "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may 
be  found." 

I  come  with  no  hair-spun  theories  of  religion,  with  no 
nice  distinctions,  with  no  elaborate  disquisition  ;  but  with  a 
plain  talk  on  the  matters  of  personal  religion.  I  feel  that 
the  message  will  be  the  savor  of  life  unto  life,  or  of  death 
unto  death.  In  other  words,  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  a  pow- 
erful medicine  ;  it  either  kills  or  cures. 

Now  you  know  very  well  that  to  seek  a  thing  is  to 
search  for  it  with  earnest  endeavor.  If  you  want  to  see  a 
certain  man  in  New  York,  and  there  is  a  matter  of  $10,000 
connected  with  your  seeing  him,  and  you  cannot  at  first  find 
him,  you  do  not  give  up  the  search.  You  look  in  the  direc- 
tory, but  cannot  find  the  name,  you  go  in  circles  where  you 
think,  perhaps,  he  may  mingle,  and,  having  found  the  part 
of  the  city  where  he  lives,  but  perhaps  not  knowing  the 
street,  you  go  through  street  after  street,  and  from  block  to 
block,  and  you  keep  on  searching  for  weeks  and  for  months. 

You  say  :  "  It  is  a  matter  of  $10,000  whether  I  see  him 
or  not."  O  that  men  were  as  persistent  in  seeking  for 
Christ !  Had  you  one  half  that  persistence  you  would  long 
ago  have  found  Him  who  is  the  joy  of  the  forgiven  spirit. 
We  may  pay  our  debts,  we  may  attend  church,  we  may  re- 
lieve the  poor,  we  maybe  public  benefactors,  and  yet  all  our 
life  never  seek  God.  O  that  the  Spirit  of  God  would  help 
while  I  try  to  show  you,  first,  Jiozv  to  seek  the  Lord,  and  in 
the  next  place,  wJicn  to  seek  Him.  "  O  seek  ye  the  Lord 
while  He  may  be  found." 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  you  are  to  seek  the  Lord 
through  earnest  and  believing  prayer.  God  is  not  an  auto- 
crat or  a  despot  seated  on  a  throne  with  His  arms  resting  on 
brazen  lions,  and  a  sentinel  pacing  up  and  down  at  the  foot 
of  the  throne.     God  is  a  father  seated   in   a  bower,  waiting 


424  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

for  His  children  to  come  and  climb  on  His  knee,  and  get 
His  kiss  and  His  benediction. 

O  impenitent  soul,  have  you  ever  tried  the  power  of 
prayer?  God  says  He  is  loving,  and  faithful,  and  patient. 
Do  }Ou  believe  that  ?  You  are  told  that  Christ  came  to 
save  sinners.  Do  you  believe  that  ?  You  are  told  that  all 
you  have  to  do  to  get  the  pardon  of  the  Gospel  is  to  ask 
for  it.  Do  you  believe  that?  Then  come  to  Him  and 
say :  "  O  Lord,  I  know  Thou  canst  not  lie.  Thou  hast 
told  me  to  come  for  pardon,  and  I  could  get  it.  I  come. 
Lord.     Keep  Thy  promise,  and  liberate  my  captive  soul." 

O  that  you  might  have  an  altar  in  the  parlor,  in  the 
kitchen,  in  the  store,  in  the  barn,  for  Christ  will  be  willing 
to  come  again  to  the  manger  to  hear  prayer.  He  would 
come  in  your  place  of  business,  as  He  confronted  Matthew, 
the  Tax  Commissioner.  If  a  measure  should  come  before 
Congress  that  you  thought  would  ruin  the  nation,  how  you 
would  send  in  petitions  and  remonstrances.  And  yet  there 
has  been  enough  sin  in  your  heart  to  ruin  it  forever,  and 
you  have  never  remonstrated  or  petitioned  against  it.  If 
your  physical  health  failed,  and  you  had  the  means,  you 
would  go  and  spend  the  summer  in  Germany,  and  the  win- 
ter in  Italy,  and  you  would  think  it  a  very  cheap  outlay  if 
you  had  to  go  all  round  the  earth  to  get  back  your  physi- 
cal health.  Have  you  made  any  effort,  any  expenditure, 
any  exertion  for  your  immortal  and  spiritual  health?  No, 
you  have  not  taken  one  step. 

0  that  you  might  now  begin  to  seek  after  God  with 
earnest  prayer.  Some  of  you  have  been  working  for  years 
and  years  for  the  support  of  your  families.  Have  you  given 
one  half  day  to  the  working  out  of  your  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling?  I  tell  you,  first  of  all,  if  you  want  to  find 
the  Lord,  you  must  pray,  and  pray,  and  pray. 

1  remark,  again,  you  must  seek  the  Lord  through  Bible 
study,  the  book  for  seekers.  When  people  are  anxious 
about  their  souls,  there  are  those  who  recommend  good 
books.  That  is  all  right.  But  I  want  to  tell  you  that  the 
Bible  is  the  best  book  in  such  circumstances.    Baxter  wrote, 


THREE    TRUMPET  PEALS.  425 

"  A  Call  to  the  Unconverted,"  but  the  Bible  is  the  best  call 
to  the  unconverted.  Philip  Doddridge  wrote,  "  The  Rise 
and  Progress  of  Religion  in  the  Soul,"  but  the  Bible  is  the 
best  rise  and  progress.  John  Angell  James  wrote  "Advice 
to  the  Anxious  Inquirer,"  but  the  Bible  is  the  best  advice 
to  the  anxious  inquirer. 

O  the  Bible  isthe  very  book  you  need,  anxious  and  inquir- 
ing soul !  A  dying  soldier  said  to  his  mate  :  "  Comrade,  give 
me  a  drop  !"    The  comrade  shook  up  the  canteen,  and  said  : 

"  There  isn't  a  drop  of  water  in  the  canteen." 

"Oh,"  said  tJie  dying  soldier,  "that's  not  what  I  want  ; 
feel  in  my  knapsack  for  my  Bible  "  and  his  comrade  found 
the  Bible,  and  read  him  a  few  of  the  gracious  promises,  and 
the  dying  soldier  said:  "  Ah,  that's  what  I  want.  There 
isn't  anything  like  the  Bible  for  a  dying  soldier,  is  there, 
comrade  ?"  O  blessed  book  while  we  live.  Blessed  book 
when  we  die  ! 

But  I  come  now  to  the  last  part  of  my  text.  It  tells  us 
when  we  are  to  seek  the  Lord.  "  While  He  may  be  found." 
When  is  that  ?  Old  age  ?  You  may  not  sec  old  age.  To- 
morrow ?  You  may  not  see  to-morrow.  To-night  ?  You 
may  not  see  to-night. 

0  ye  dying,  yet  immortal  men,  "  Seek  the  Lord  while 
He  may  be  found." 

A   DESPAIRING    OCTOGENARIAN. 

1  want  you  to  take  the  hint  that  there  is  a  time  when  He 
cannot  be  found.  There  was  a  man  in  New  York,  eighty 
years  of  age,  who  said  to  a  clergyman  that  came  in,  "  Do 
you  think  that  a  man  at  eighty  years  of  age  can  get  par- 
doned ?"  "  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  clergyman.  The  old  man 
said  :  "  I  can't ;  when  I  was  twenty  years  of  age  the  Spirit 
of  God  came  to  my  soul,  and  I  felt  the  importance  of  attend- 
ing to  these  things,  but  I  put  it  off.  I  rejected  God,  and 
since  then  I  have  had  no  feeling."  "Well,"  said  the  min- 
ister, "wouldn't  }'ou  like  to  have  me  pray  with  you  ?'• 
"  Yes,"  replied  the  old  man,  "  but  it  will  do  no  good.     You 


426  TRUMPET  ri'.ALS. 

can  pray  with  mc  if  you  like."  The  minister  knelt  down 
aiul  prayed,  and  commended  the  man's  soul  to  God.  It 
seemed  to  have  no  effect  upon  him.  After  a  while  the  last 
hour  of  the  man's  life  came,  and  through  his  delirium  a 
spark  of  intelligence  seemed  to  flash,  and  with  his  last 
breath  he  said  :  "  I  shall  never  be  forgiven  /"  "  O  seek  the 
Lord  while  He  may  be  found." 


PEAL    SECOND. 

"Call  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near."     [Last  clause  of  the  same 
verse  as  above.] — ISA.  55  :  6. 

Now  He  is  a  God  nigh  at  hand,  soon  He  may  be  a  God  afar  ofl. 

One  Sabbath  night  years  ago  in  my  church  in  Brooklyn 
a  young  man  appeared  at  the  end  of  the  platform  and  said 
to  mc,  "  I  have  just  come  off  the  sea."  I  said,  "When  did 
you  arrive  ?"  Said  he,  "  I  came  into  port  this  afternoon. 
I  was  in  a  great  '  blow  '  off  Cape  Ilatteras  this  last  week, 
and  I  thought  that  I  might  as  well  go  to  heaven  as  to  hell. 
I  thought  the  ship  would  sink  ;  but,  sir,  I  never  very  seri- 
ously thought  about  my  soul  until  to-night."  I  said  to  him, 
"  Do  you  feel  that  Christ  is  able  and  willing  to  save  you  ?" 
"  Oh,  yes,"  he  replied,  "  I  do."  "  Well,"  I  said,  "  now  are 
you  willing  to  come  and  be  saved  by  Him?"  "I  am,"  he 
said.  "  Well,  will  you  now,  in  the  prayer  we  are  about  to 
offer,  give  yourself  to  God  for  time  and  eternity  ?"  "  I  will," 
he  said.  Then  we  knelt  in  prayer,  and  after  we  had  got 
through  praying  he  told  me  the  great  transformation  had 
taken  place.  He  did  not  wait  till  God  was  afar  off,  as  in  the 
following: 

A  young  man,  at  the  close  of  a  religious  service,  was 
asked  to  decide  the  matter  of  his  soul's  salvation.  He  said, 
"  I  will  not  do  it  to-night."  Well,  the  Christian  man  kept 
talking  with  him,  and  he  said,  "  I  insist  that  to-night  you 
either  take  God  or  reject  him."  "  Well,"  said  the  young 
man,  '*  if  you  put  it  that  way,  I  will  reject  Him.  There  now, 
the  matter's  settled."  On  his  way  homo  on  horseback,  he 
knew  not   that  a  tree  had  fallen  aslant  the   road,  and  he  was 


THREE    TRUMPET  PEALS.  427 

going  at  full  speed,  and  he  struck  the  obstacle  and  dropped 
lifeless.  That  night  his  Christian  mother  heard  the  rider- 
less horse  plunging  about  the  barn,  and  suspecting  that 
something  terrible  was  the  matter,  she  went  out  and  came 
to  the  place  where  her  son  lay,  and  she  cried  out,  "  O 
Henry!  dead,  and  not  a  Christian.  Oh,  my  son!  my  son  ! 
dead  and  not  a  Christian.  O  Henry!  Henry!  dead  and  not 
a  Christian."  God  keep  us  from  such  a  catastrophe!  O, 
do  not  thus  put  off  calling  upon  God  till  you  are  finally  left 
to  reject  Him  and  are  lost !  Right  about  face  !  for  you  are 
going  in  the  wrong  direction.  While  you  are  in  a  favorable 
mood  for  it,  enter  into  life.  Here,  and  just  now,  decide 
everything  that  makes  for  peace  and  heaven.  Agassiz  says 
that  he  has  stood  at  one  place  in  the  Alps  where  he  could 
throw  a  chip  into  the  water  in  one  direction,  and  it  would 
roll  on  into  the  German  Ocean,  or  he  could  throw  a  chip  into 
the  water  in  another  direction,  and  it  would  reach  the  Black 
Sea  by  the  Danube,  or  he  could  throw  a  chip  in  another  di- 
rection, and  it  would  enter  the  Mediterranean,  by  the 
Rhone.  How  far  apart  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Black 
Sea  and  the  German  Ocean  !  Standing  to-day  on  this  Alps 
of  Gospel  privilege,  you  can  project  your  soul  into  the  right 
currents,  and  it  will  roll  on  into  the  ocean  of  life,  or  project 
it  in  the  wrong  direction,  and  it  will  roll  into  the  sea  of 
death.  But  how  far  apart  the  two  distances  !  May  God 
help  us  to  appreciate  more  and  more  the  momentous  mean- 
ing of  the  words,  "  Call  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near." 
We  are  thus  prepared  to  hear. 

PEAL    THIRD. 

"  Behold  !  now  is  the  accepted  time  ;  behold  !  now  is  the  day  of 
salvation  !"  2  Cor.  6  :  2. 

There  are  those  who  say :  "  I  would  like  to  become  a 
Christian.  I  have  been  waiting  a  good  while  for  the  right 
kind  of  influences  to  come  ;"  and  still  you  are  waiting. 


428  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

A   SPECTATOR   AT   GETTYSBURG. 

A  gentleman  told  mc  that  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg 
he  stood  upon  a  height  looking  off  upon  the  conflicting 
armies.  He  said  it  was  the  most  exciting  moment  of  his 
life ;  now  one  army  seeming  to  triumph,  and  now  the  other. 
After  a  while  the  host  wheeled  in  such  a  way  that  he  knew 
in  five  minutes  the  whole  question  would  be  decided.  He 
said  the  emotion  was  almost  unbearable.  There  is  just  such 
a  time  to-day  with  you,  O  impenitent  soul — the  forces  of 
light  on  the  one  side,  and  the  siege-guns  of  hell  on  the  other 
side,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  matter  will  be  settled  for 
eternity. 

There  is  a  time  which  mercy  has  set  for  leaving  port.  If 
you  are  on  board  before  that  you  will  get  a  passage  for 
heaven.  If  you  arc  not  on  board,  you  miss  your  passage 
for  heaven.  As  in  law  courts  a  case  is  sometimes  adjourned 
from  time  to  time,  and  from  year  to  year  till  the  bill  of  costs 
eats  up  the  entire  estate,  so  there  are  men  who  are  adjourn- 
ing the  matter  of  religion  from  time  to  time,  and  from  year 
to  year  until  heavenly  bliss  is  the  bill  of  costs  the  man  will 
have  to  pay  for  it. 

CRISIS   IN  DISEASE. 

Sin  is  an  awful  disease.  I  hear  people  say  with  a  toss  of 
the  head  and  with  a  trivial  manner  :  "  Oh,  yes,  I'm  a  sinner." 
Sin  is  an  awful  disease.  It  is  leprosy.  It  is  dropsy.  It  is 
consumption.  It  is  all  moral  disorders  in  one.  Now  you 
know  there  is  a  crisis  in  disease.  Perhaps  you  have  had 
some  illustration  of  it  in  your  family.  Sometimes  the  phy- 
sician has  called,  and  he  has  looked  at  the  patient  and  said : 
"  That  case  was  simple  enough,  but  the  crisis  has  passed. 
If  you  had  called  mc  yesterday  or  this  morning  I  could 
have  cured  the  patient.  It  is  too  late  now;  the  crisis  has 
passed."  Just  so  it  is  in  the  spiritual  treatment  of  the  soul 
— there  is  a  crisis.  Before  that,  life!  After  that,  death! 
O  my  dear  brother,  as  you  love  your  soul  do  not  let  the 
crisis  pass  unattended  to! 


THREE    TRUMPET  PEALS.  4^9 

LOST   CHANCE. 

There  are  some  who  can  remember  instances  in  Hfe  when, 
if  they  had  bought  a  certain  property,  they  would  have  be- 
come very  rich.  A  few  acres  that  would  have  cost  them 
almost  nothing  were  offered  them.  They  refused  them. 
Afterward  a  large  village  or  city  sprang  up  on  those  acres  of 
ground  and  they  see  what  a  mistake  they  made  in  not  buy- 
ing the  property.  There  zvas  an  opportunity  of  getting  it. 
It  never  came  back  again.  And  so  it  is  in  regard  to  a  man's 
spiritual  and  eternal  fortune.  There  is  a  chance  ;  if  you  let 
that  go,  perhaps  it  never  comes  back.  Certainly,  that  one 
never  comes  back. 

"  Oh,"  you  say,  "religion  I  am  going  to  have  ;  it  is  only 
a  question  of  time."  My  brother,  I  am  afraid  that  you  may 
lose  heaven  the  way  Louis  Philippe  lost  his  Empire.  The 
Parisian  mob  came  around  the  Tuileries.  The  National 
Guard  stood  in  defence  of  the  palace,  and  the  commander 
said  to  Louis  Philippe:  "Shall  I  fire  now?  Shall  I  order 
the  troops  to  fire  ?  With  one  volley  we  can  clear  the  place." 
"  No,"  said  Louis  Philippe,  "  not  yet."  A  few  minutes 
passed  on,  and  then  Louis  Philippe,  seeing  the  case  was 
hopeless,  said  to  the  general :  "  Now  is  the  time  to  fire." 
"  No,"  said  the  general,  "  it  is  too  late  now ;  don't  you  see 
that  the  soldiers  are  exchanging  arms  with  the  citizens  ?  It 
is  too  late."  Down  went  the  throne  of  Louis  Philippe. 
Away  from  the  earth  went  the  House  of  Orleans,  and  all 
because  the  King  said  :  "  Not  yet,  not  yet."  May  God  for 
bid  that  any  of  you  should  adjourn  this  great  subject  of 
religion  and  postpone  assailing  your  spiritual  foes  until  it  is 
too  late — too  late,  you  losing  a  throne  in  heaven  the  way 
that  Louis  Philippe  lost  a  throne  on  earth, 

"When  the  Judge  descends  in  might, 
Clothed  in  majesty  and  light. 
When  the  earth  shall  quake  with  fear, 
Where,  O  where,  wilt  thou  appear  ?" 

Procrastination  is  a  notorious  thief  of  time  and  murderer 
of  the  soul. 


430  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

POSTPONEMENT    USELESS. 

Why  defer  this  matter,  oh  my  dear  hearer?  Have  you 
any  idea  that  sin  will  wear  out?  that  it  will  evaporate?  that 
it  will  relax  its  grasp,  that  you  may  find  religion  as  a  man 
accidentally  finds  a  lost  pocket-book?  Ah,  no !  No  man 
ever  became  a  Christian  by  accident,  or  by  the  relaxing  of 
sin.  The  embarrassments  are  all  the  time  increasing.  The 
hosts  of  darkness  are  recruiting,  and  the  longer  you  post- 
pone this  matter  the  steeper  the  path  will  become.  O  fly 
for  refuge !  The  avenger  of  blood  is  on  the  track !  The 
throne  of  judgment  will  soon  be  set ;  and,  if  you  have  any- 
thing to  do  toward  your  eternal  salvation,  you  had  better  do 
it  now,  for  the  redemption  of  the  soul  is  precious,  and  it 
ceaseth  forever! 

Have  you  ever  imagined  what  w^ill  be  the  soliloquy  of 
the  soul  on  that  day  unpardoned,  as  it  looks  back  upon  its 
past  life?  "Oh,"  says  the  soul,  "I  am  lost!  Notwith- 
standing all  the  opportunities  I  have  had  of  being  saved,  I 
am  lost !  O  Thou  long-suffering  Lord  God  Almighty,  I  am 
lost !  O  day  of  judgment,  I  am  lost  !  O  father,  mother, 
brother,  sister,  child  in  glory,  I  am  lost !"  And  then  as  the 
tide  goes  out,  your  soul  goes  out  with  it — farther  from  God, 
farther  from  happiness,  and  I  hear  your  voice  fainter,  and 
fainter,  and  fainter:  "Lost!  Lost!  Lost!  Lost!  Lost!" 
And,  O  my  dear  friend,  perhaps  it  is  with  you 

NOW  OR  never!! 

Those  persons  play  the  fool  who,  while  they  admit  the 
righteousness  of  religion,  set  it  down  for  future  attendance. 
Do  you  know  how  many  times  the  word  "  Now"  occurs  in 
the  Bible?  Over  two  hundred  times.  One  of  the  shortest 
words  in  the  Bible,  and  yet  one  of  the  grandest  in  meaning 
and  ramifications.  W'hen  does  the  Bible  say  is  the  best  time 
to  repent?  Now.  When  does  the  Bible  say  that  God  will 
forgive?  Now.  When  docs  God  say  is  the  only  safe  time 
to  attend  to  the  matters  of  the  soul  ?     Now.     But  that  word 


THREE    rRUMPET  PEALS.  43 1 

"  Now"  melts  away  as  easily  as  a  snowflake  in  the  evening 
rain.  Where  is  the  "now"  of  the  dead  of  last  year?  the 
"now"  of  the  dead  of  last  month?  the  "now"  of  the  dead 
of  last  week?  the  "now"  of  the  dead  of  yesterday?  Time 
picked  it  up  in  its  beak  and  flew  away  with  it. 

Swammerdam  and  other  naturalists  tell  us  there  are  in- 
sects which  within  the  space  of  one  minute  are  born,  fulfil 
their  mission,  celebrate  their  nuptials,  and  die  ;  but  this  won- 
derful "  now  "  is  more  short  lived  than  they.  It  is  a  flash,  a 
stroke,  a  glance.  Its  cradle  is  its  grave.  If  men  catch  it  at 
all,  it  is  with  quick  clutch.  Millions  of  men  have  lost  their 
soul  immortal  because  they  did  not  understand  the  momen- 
tum and  the  ponderosity  of  that  one  word.  All  the  strate- 
gic powers  of  hell  are  exerted  in  trying  to  substract  from  the 
energy  and  emphasis  of  that  word.  They  say  it  is  only  a 
word  of  three  letters,  while  there  is  a  better  word  of  eight 
letters — -"to-morrow."  They  say,  "  Throw  away  that  small 
word  and  take  this  other  grand  one  ;"  and  so  men  say,  "  Give 
us  '  to-morrow  '  and  take  away  from  us  '  now  ';  "  and  between 
those  two  words  is  the  Appian  way  of  death,  and  a  great 
multitude  throng  that  road,  jostling  and  elbowing  each  other, 
hastening  on  swifter  and  swifter  to  die.  For  how  much 
would  you  walk  the  edge  of  the  roof  of  your  house  ?  For 
how  much  would  you  come  out  on  the  most  dangerous  peak 
of  the  Matterhorn  and  wave  your  cap  ?  You  say,  "  No 
money  could  induce  me  to  do  it."  And  yet  you  stand  to- 
day with  one  foot  on  a  crumbling  moment  and  the  other 
foot  lifted,  not  knowing  where  you  will  put  it  down,  while 
the  distance  between  you  and  the  bottom  of  the  depth  be- 
neath you  no  plummet  can  measure,  no  arithmetic  calculate, 
no  wing  of  lightning  cleave.  And  yet  the  Bible  tells  us  that 
unless  a  man  has  a  new  heart  he  cannot  get  into  heaven  ; 
and  some  of  you  are  not  seeking  for  that  new  heart.  In 
Mexico  sometimes  the  ground  suddenly  opens,  and  a  man 
standing  near  the  gap  can  see  down  an  appalling  distance. 
But,  oh,  if  to-day,  at  your  feet,  there  should  open  the  chasms 
of  the  lost  world,  how  you  would  fling  yourself  back  and  cry, 
"  God  save  me — now  !  now  !  now  !" 


432  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

I  greet  you  to-day,  my  brother,  in  the  very  gate  of  eter- 
nity. Some  of  us  may  hve  a  longer  and  some  of  us  may  live 
a  shorter  time;  but  at  the  longest,  life  is  so  short  that  we  all 
stand  on  the  door-sill  of  the  great  future.  The  next  step — 
all  the  angels  of  God  cannot  undo  the  consequences.  Will 
your  exit  from  this  life  be  a  rising  or  a  falling?  The  righte- 
ous go  up.  The  Saviour  helps  them.  Ministering  spirits 
meet  them.  The  doors  of  Paradise  open  to  receive  them. 
Up !  up  !  up  !  O  !  what  a  grand  thing  it  is  to  die  with  a 
strong  faith  in  God,  like  that  which  Stonewall  Jackson  had 
when,  in  his  expiring  moments,  he  said  :  "  Let  us  cross  over 
the  river,  and  lie  down  under  the  shade."  But  to  leave  this 
world  unprepared  is  falling — falling  from  God,  falling  from 
hope,  falling  from  peace,  falling  from  heaven — swiftly,  wildly, 
forever  falling. 

■  So  it  was  with  one  who  had  been  eminent  for  his  intelli- 
gence, but  who  had  omitted  all  preparation  for  the  future 
world,  and  had  come  down  to  his  last  hour.  He  said  to  his 
wife,  seated  by  the  bedside,  "  O  don't  talk  to  me  about  pain  ; 
it  is  the  mind,  ivonian,  it  is  the  mind!  Of  all  the  years  of 
my  life,  I  never  lived  one  minute  for  heaven.  It  is  awfully 
dark  here,"  he  whispered,  "  it  is  awfully  dark.  I  seem  to 
stand  on  the  slippery  edge  of  a  great  gulf.  I  shall  fall  !  I 
am  falling !"  And  with  a  shriek,  as  when  a  man  tumbles 
over  a  precipice,  he  expired.  Wise,  for  this  world  ;  about 
the  matters  of  his  immortal  soul,  he  was  all  his  life-long  play- 
ing the  fool. 

I  will  take  the  case  of  some  one  and  ask  you  what  }'ou 
think  about  that  case.  He  has  been  all  his  life  amid  Bibles 
and  churches,  so  that  he  knows  his  duty.  Christ  has  offered 
to  do  all  for  that  man  that  a  divine  Saviour  can  ofTer  to  do 
for  a  dying  sonl.  Heaven  has  been  ofTered  him,  yea,  been 
pushed  upon  him,  and  yet  he  has  not  accepted  it,  and  to-day 
he  sits  deliberately  allowing  his  chances  for  life  to  go  away 
from  him.  What  do  you  say  of  that  one?"  "  Hallucinat- 
ed," says  one;  "  Monomaniacal,"  says  another;  "  Pla\'ing 
the  fool,"  says  another.  Oh,  how  many  there  are  taking 
just  that  position  !     There  is  such  a  thing  as  pxTomania,  an 


THREE    TRUMPET  PEALS.  433 

insanity  which  disposes  one  to  destroy  buildings  by  fire  ;  but 
who  would  have  thought  that  there  was  a  pyromania  of  the 
immortal  nature,  and  that  anyone  could  be  so  struck  through 
with  that  insanity  as  to  have  a  desire  and  disposition  to  con- 
sume the  soul? 

I  cannot  consent  to  have  you  lose  your  souls.  Come 
with  me,  and  as  in  the  summer  time  we  go  down  to  the  beach 
and  bathe  in  the  waters,  so  to-day  let  us  join  hands  and  wade 
down  into  the  summer  sea  of  God's  forgiveness.  Roll  over 
us,  tides  of  everlasting  love,  roll  over  us !  Dear  Lord,  we 
knock  at  the  door  of  mercy — not  as  the  demented  knock, 
not  knowing  what  they  want,  but  knocking  at  the  door  of 
mercy,  because  we  want  to  come  in,  while  others  run  their 
meaningless  hands  up  and  down  the  panels,  and  scrabble 
at  the  gate,  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  men,  and  angels,  and 
devils,  playing  the  fool. 


THE   ACCEPTED   TIME. 

Present  opportunities  will  soon  be  gone  forever.  The 
conductor  of  a  rail-train  was  telling  me  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  one  night  standing  by  his  train  on  a  side  track,  his  train 
having  been  switched  so  that  an  express  train  might  dart 
past  unhindered.  He  said  while  he  stood  there  in  the  dark- 
ness, beside  his  train  on  the  side-track,  he  heard  the  thunder 
of  the  express  in  the  distance.  Then  he  saw  the  flash  of  the 
headlight.  The  train  came  with  fearful  velocity,  nearer  and 
nearer,  until  after  a  while,  when  it  came  very  near,  by  the 
flash  of  the  headlight,  he  saw  that  the  switchman  had  not 
attended  to  his  duty — either  through  intoxication  or  indif- 
ference,— and  that  train,  unless  something  \vere  done  im- 
mediately, would  rush  on  the  side-track,  and  dash  the  other 
train  to  atoms.  He  shouted  to  the  switchman,  "  Set  up  that 
switch!"  and  with  one  stroke  the  switch  went  back,  and  the 
express  thundered  on.  Oh  men  and  women,  going  on  to- 
ward the  eternal  world,  swift  as  the  years,  swift  as  the 
months,  swift  as  the  days,  swift  as  the  hours,  swift  as  the 


434  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

minutes,  swift  as  the  seconds:  On  what  track  arc  you  run- 
ning? Toward  liijht  or  darkness?  Toward  victory  or  de- 
feat ?  Toward  heaven  or  hell  ?  Set  up  that  switch  !  Cry 
aloud  to  God  !  "  Behold  I  Now  is  the  accepted  time  ;  be- 
hold now  is  the  day  of  salvation  I"  Now  !  O  if  I  could 
only  write  on  every  heart  in  three  capital  letters  that  word 
N-O-W — Now  !  now  !  now ! 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
The    Story    of   Naaman. 

Here  we  have  a  warrior  sick,  not  with  pleurisies,  or 
rheumatisms,  or  consumptions,  but  with  a  disease  worse 
than  all  these  put  together ;  a  red  mark  has  come  out  on 
the  forehead,  precursor  of  complete  disfigurement  and  disso- 
lution. I  have  something  awful  to  tell  you.  General  Naa- 
man, the  commander-in-chief  of  all  the  Syrian  forces,  has 
the  leprosy!  It  is  on  his  hands,  on  his  face,  on  his  entire 
person. 

Get  out  of  the  way  of  the  pestilence !  If  his  breath 
strike  you,  you  are  a  dead  man.  The  commander-in-chief 
of  all  the  forces  of  Syria  !  And  yet  he  would  be  glad  to 
exchange  conditions  with  the  boy  at  his  stirrup,  or  the  host- 
ler that  blankets  his  charger.  The  news  goes  like  wildfire 
all  through  the  realm,  and  the  people  are  sympathetic,  and 
they  cry  out,  "  Is  it  possible  that  our  great  hero  who  over- 
threw Ahab,  and  around  whom  we  came  with  such  vocifera- 
tion when  he  returned  from  victorious  battle — can  it  be 
possible  that  our  grand  and  glorious  Naaman  has  the 
leprosy?" 

Yes.  Everybody  has  something  he  wishes  he  had  not : 
— David,  an  Absalom  to  disgrace  him  ;  Paul,  a  thorn  to 
sting  him  ;  Job,  carbuncles  to  plague  him  ;  Samson,  a  De- 
lilah to  shear  him  ;  Ahab,  a  Naboth  to  deny  him  ;  Haman, 
a  Mordecai  to  irritate  him  ;  George  Washinsfton,  childless- 
ness  to  afflict  him  ;  John  Wesley,  a  termagant  wife  to  pester/ 
him  ;  Leah,  weak  eyes ;  Pope,  a  crooked  back ;  Byron,  a 
club  foot ;  John  Milton,  blind  eyes ;  Charles  Lamb,  an  in- 
sane sister ;  and  you,  and  you,  and  you,  and  you,  something 
which  you  never  bargained  for,  and  would  like  to  get  rid  of. 
The  reason  of  this  is,  that  God  does  not  want  this  world  to 

435 


436  TRUMrET  PEALS. 

be  too  bright ;  otherwise  wc  would  always  want  to  stay, 
and  eat  these  fruits,  and  lie  on  these  lounges,  and  shake 
hands  in  this  pleasant  society.  We  are  only  in  the  vesti- 
bule of  a  grand  temple,  God  does  not  want  us  to  stay  on 
the  doorstep,  and  therefore  he  sends  aches,  and  annoyances, 
and  sorrows,  and  bereavements  of  all  sorts  to  push  us  on, 
and  push  us  up  toward  riper  fruits,  and  brighter  society,  and 
more  radiant  prosperities.     God  is  only  zuhipping  us  a/wad. 

The  reason  that  Edward  Payson  and  Robert  Hall  had 
more  rapturous  views  of  heaven  than  other  people  had  was 
because,  through  their  aches  and  pains,  God  pushed  them 
nearer  up  to  it.  If  God  dashes  out  one  of  your  pictures,  it 
is  only  to  show  you  a  brighter  one.  If  He  sting  your  foot 
with  gout,  your  brain  with  neuralgia,  your  tongue  with  an 
inextinguishable  thirst,  it  is  only  because  He  is  preparing  to 
substitute  a  better  body  than  you  ever  dreamed  of,  when 
the  mortal  shall  put  on  immortality.  It  is  to  push  you  on, 
and  push  you  up  toward  something  grander  and  better,  that 
God  sends  upon  you,  as  He  did  upon  General  Naaman,  some- 
thing you  do  not  want. 

Seated  in  his  Syrian  mansion — all  the  walls  glittering 
with  the  shields  which  he  had  captured  in  battle  ;  the  corri- 
dors crowded  with  admiring  visitors  who  just  wanted  to  see 
him  once ;  music,  and  mirth,  and  banqueting  filling  all  the 
mansion,  from  tesselated  floor  to  pictured  ceiling — Naaman 
would  have  forgotten  that  there  was  anything  better,  and 
would  have  been  glad  to  stay  there  ten  thousand  years.  But 
oh,  how  the  shields  dim,  and  how  the  visitors  fly  from  the 
hall,  and  how  the  music  drops  dead  from  the  string,  and 
how  the  gates  of  the  mansion  slam  shut  with  sepulchral 
bang,  as  you  read  the  closing  words  of  the  eulogium  :  "  He 
was  a  leper  !     He  was  a  leper  !" 

There  was  one  person  more  sympathetic  with  General 
Naaman  than  any  other  person.  Naaman's  wife  walks  the 
floor,  wringing  her  hands  and  trying  to  think  what  she  can 
do  to  alleviate  her  husband's  suffering.  All  remedies  have 
failed.  The  surgeon-general  and  the  doctors  of  the  ro)'al 
staff  have  met,  and   they  have  shaken   their  heads  as  much 


THE   STORY  OF  NAAMAN.  437 

as  to  say,  "  No  cure ;  no  cure."  I  think  that  the  office- 
seekers  had  all  folded  up  their  recommendations  and  gone 
home.  Probably  most  of  the  employees  of  the  establish- 
ment had  dropped  their  work  and  were  thinking  of  looking 
for  some  other  situation.  What  shall  now  become  of  poor 
Naaman's  wife?  She  must  have  sympathy  somewhere.  In 
her  despair  she  goes  to  a  little  Hebrew  captive,  a  servant- 
girl  in  her  house,  to  whom  she  tells  the  whole  story ;  as 
sometimes,  when  overborne  with  the  sorrows  of  the  world, 
and  finding  no  sympathy  anywhere  else,  you  have  gone  out 
and  found  in  the  sympathy  of  some  humble  domestic — 
Rose,  or  Dinah,  or  Bridget — a  help  which  the  world  could 
not  give  you.  What  a  scene  it  was  !  One  of  the  grandest 
women  in  all  Syria  in  cabinet  council  with  a  waiting-maid 
over  the  declining  health  of  the  mighty  general !  "  I  know 
something,"  says  the  little  captive  maid,  "  I  know  some- 
thing," as  she  bounds  to  her  bare  feet.  "  In  the  land  from 
which  I  was  stolen  there  is  a  certain  prophet  known  by  the 
name  of  Elisha,  who  can  cure  almost  everything,  and  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  he  could  cure  my  master.  Send  for  him 
right  away."  "  Oh,  hush  !"  you  say.  "  If  the  highest  medi- 
cal talent  in  all  the  land  cannot  cure  that  leper,  there  is  no 
need  of  your  listening  to  any  talk  of  a  servant-girl."  But  do 
not  scoff,  do  not  sneer.  The  finger  of  that  little  captive 
maid  is  pointing  in  the  right  direction.  Forgetting  her  own 
personal  sorrows,  she  sympathizes  with  the  suffering  of  her 
master,  and  recommends  him  to  the  famous  Hebrew 
prophet. 

No  wonder  the  advice  of  this  little  Hebrew  captive  threw 
all  Naaman's  mansion  and  Benhadad's  palace  into  excite- 
ment. 

With  face  scarified  and  ridged  and  inflamed  by  the  pes- 
tilence, and  aided  by  those  who  supported  him  on  either 
side,  he  staggers  out  to  the  chariot.  Hold  fast  the  fiery 
coursers  of  the  royal  stable,  while  the  poor  sick  man  lifts  his 
swollen  feet  and  pain-struck  limbs  into  the  vehicle.  Bolster 
him  up  with  the  pillows,  and  let  him  take  a  lingering  look 
at  his  bright  apartment,   for  perhaps  the    Hebrew  captive 


438  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

may  be  mistaken,  and  the  next  time  Naaman  comes  to  that 
place  he  may  be  a  dead  weight  on  the  shoulders  of  those 
who  carry  him — an  expired  chieftain  seeking  sepulture  amid 
the  lamentations  of  an  admiring  nation.  Good-by,  Naa- 
man ! 

Let  the  charioteer  drive  gently  over  the  hills  of  Hermon, 
lest  he  jolt  the  invalid.  Here  goes  the  bravest  man  of  all 
his  day,  a  captive  of  a  horrible  disease.  As  the  ambulance 
winds  through  the  streets  of  Damascus  the  tears  and  prayers 
of  all  the  people  go  after  the  world-renowned  invalid.  Per- 
haps you  have  had  an  invalid  go  out  from  your  house  on  a 
health  excursion.  You  know  how  the  neighbors  stood 
around  and  said,  "  Ah,  he  will  never  come  back  again  alive  !" 
Oh,  it  was  a  solemn  moment,  I  tell  you,  when  the  invalid 
had  departed,  and  you  went  into  the  room  to  make  the  bed, 
and  to  remove  the  medicine  phials  from  the  shelf,  and  to 
throw  open  the  shutters  so  that  the  fresh  air  might  rush  into 
the  long-closed  room  !  Good-by,  Naaman  !  There  is  only 
one  cheerful  face  looking  at  him,  and  that  is  the  face  of  the 
little  Hebrew  captive,  who  is  sure  he  will  get  cured  and  who 
is  so  glad  she  helped  him. 

As  the  chariot  winds  out  and  the  escort  of  mounted 
courtiers,  and  the  mules  laden  with  sacks  of  gold  and  silver 
and  embroidered  suits  of  apparel,  went  through  the  gates  of 
Damascus  and  out  on  the  long  way,  the  hills  of  Naphtali 
and  Ephraim  look  clown  on  the  procession,  and  the  retinue 
goes  right  past  the  battle-fields  where  Naaman,  in  the  days 
of  his  health,  used  to  rally  his  troops  for  fearful  onset ;  and 
then  the  procession  stops  and  reclines  awhile  in  the  groves 
of  olives  and  oleander,  and  General  Naaman  so  sick — so 
very,  very  sick ! 

How  the  countrymen  gaped  as  the  procession  passed ! 
They  had  seen  Naaman  go  past  like  a  whirlwind  in  days 
gone  by,  and  had  stood  aghast  at  the  clank  of  his  war-equip- 
ments; but  now  they  commiserate  him.  They  say,  "  Poor 
man,  he  will  never  get  home  alive  !  Poor  man  !"  General 
Naaman  wakes  up  from  a  restless  sleep  in  the  chariot,  and 
he  sa)'s  to  the  charioteer,  "  I  low  long  before  we  shall  reach 


THE   STORY  OF  N A  AM  AN.  439 

this  prophet  Elisha's  ?"  The  charioteer  says  to  a  waysider, 
"  How  far  is  it  to  Ehsha's  house  ?"  He  says,  "  Two  miles." 
"  Two  miles."  Then  they  whip  up  the  lathered  and  fagged- 
out  horses.  The  whole  procession  brightens  up  at  the 
prospect  of  speedy  arrival. 

By  and  by  the  charioteers  shout,  "  Whoa !"  to  the 
horses,  and  the  tramping  hoofs  and  grinding  wheels  cease 
shaking  the  earth. 

"  Come  out,  Elisha,  come  out,  you  have  company  ;  the 
grandest  company  that  ever  came  to  your  house  has  come 
to  it  now."  No  stir  inside  Elisha's  house.  The  fact  was, 
the  Lord  had  informed  Elisha  that  the  sick  captain  was 
coming,  and  just  how  to  treat  him.  Indeed,  when  you  are 
sick  and  the  Lord  wants  you  to  get  well,  He  always  tells 
the  doctor  how  to  treat  you  ;  and  tJie  reason  %ve  have  so  many 
bungling  doctors  is  because  they  depend  upon  their  own 
strength  and  instruction,  and  not  on  the  Lord  God  ;  and  that 
always  makes  malpractice.  Come  out,  Elisha,  and  attend 
to  your  business.  General  Naaman  and  his  retinue  waited 
and  waited  and  waited.  The  fact  was,  Naaman  had  two 
diseases — pride  and  leprosy ;  the  one  was  as  hard  to  get  rid 
of  as  the  other.  Elisha  sits  quietly  in  his  house  and  does 
not  go  out.  After  a  while,  when  he  thinks  he  has  humbled 
this  proud  man,  he  says  to  a  servant,  "  Go  out  and  tell  Gen 
eral  Naaman  to  bathe  seven  times  in  the  River  Jordan,  out 
yonder  five  miles,  and  he  will  get  entirely  well." 

The  message  comes  out.  "  What !"  says  the  comman- 
der-in-chief of  the  Syrian  forces,  his  eye  kindling  with  an 
animation  which  it  had  not  shown  for  weeks,  and  his  swol- 
len foot  stamping  on  the  bottom  of  the  chariot,  regardless 
of  pain.  "  What  !  Isn't  he  coming  out  to  see  me  ?  Why, 
I  thought  certainly  he  would  come  and  utter  some  cabalis- 
tic words  over  me,  or  make  some  enigmatical  passes  over  my 
wounds.  Why,  I  don't  think  he  knows  who  I  am.  Isn't  he 
coming  out?  I  won't  endure  it  any  longer.  Charioteer, 
drive  on  !  Wash  in  the  Jordan  !  Ha !  ha  !  The  slimy 
Jordan — the  muddy  Jordan — the  monotonous  Jordan.  I 
wouldn't  be  seen  by  any  one  washing  in  such  a  river  as  that. 


440  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

Why,  wc  watered  our  horses  in  a  better  river  than  that  on 
our  way  here.  The  beautiful  river,  the  jaspar-paved  river  of 
Pharpar.  Besides  that,  we  have  in  our  country  another 
Damascene  river,  Abana,  with  foHagcd  bank  and  torrent 
ever  swift  and  ever  clear,  under  the  flickering  shadows  of 
sycamore  and  oleander.  Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers 
of  Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of  Israel.-'" 

I  suppose  Naaman  felt  very  much  as  we  would  feel  if, 
by  way  of  medical  prescription,  some  one  should  tell  us  to 
go  and  wash  in  the  Danube  or  the  Rhine.  We  would  an- 
swer, "Are  not  the  Connecticut  or  the  Hudson  just  as 
good?"  Or,  as  an  Englishman  would  feel  if  he  were  told, 
by  way  of  medical  prescription,  he  must  go  and  wash  in  the 
Mississippi  or  St.  Lawrence.  He  would  cry  out,  "  Are  not 
the  Thames  and  the  Mersey  just  as  well?"  The  fact  was 
that  haughty  Naaman  needed  to  learn  what  every  English- 
man and  every  American  needs  to  learn — that  when  God 
tells  you  to  do  a  thing,  you  must  go  and  do  it,  whether  you 
understand  the  reason  or  not. 

Well,  General  Naaman  could  not  stand  the  test.  The 
charioteer  gives  a  jerk  to  the  right  line  until  the  bit  snaps 
in  the  horse's  mouth,  and  the  whirr  of  the  wheels  and  the 
flying  of  the  dust  show  the  indignation  of  the  great  com- 
mander. "  He  turned  and  went  away  in  a  rage."  So  peo- 
ple now  often  get  mad  at  religion,  and  go  away  in  a  rage. 
So,  after  all,  it  seems  that  this  health  excursion  of  General 
Naaman  is  to  be  a  dead  failure.  That  little  Hebrew  cap- 
tive might  as  well  have  not  told  him  of  the  prophet,  and  this 
long  journey  might  as  well  not  have  been  taken.  Poor,  sick, 
dying  Naaman  !  are  you  going  away  in  high  dudgeon  and 
worse  than  when  you  came  "^  As  his  chariot  halts  a  moment, 
his  servants  clamber  up  in  it  and  coax  him  to  do  as  Elisha 
said.  They  say  :  "  It's  easy.  If  the  prophet  had  told  you  to 
walk  for  a  mile  on  sharp  spikes  in  order  to  get  rid  of  this 
awful  disease  you  would  have  done  it.  It  is  easy.  Come, 
my  lord,  just  get  down  and  wash  in  the  Jordan.  You  take  a 
bath  every  day,  anyhow,  a/nd  in  this  climate  it  is  so  hot  that 
it  will  do  you  good.     Do  it  on  our  account,  and  for  the  sake 


THE   STORY  OF  N A  AM  AN.  44 1 

of  the  army  you  command,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  nation 
that  admires  you.  Come,  my  lord,  just  try  this  Jordanic 
bath."  "Well,"  he  says,  "to  please  you  I  will  do  as  you 
say."  The  retinue  drive  to  the  brink  of  the  Jordan.  The 
horses  paw  and  neigh  to  get  into  the  stream  themselves  and 
cool  their  hot  flanks.  General  Naaman,  assisted  by  his 
attendants,  gets  down  out  of  the  chariot  and  painfully  comes 
to  the  brink  of  the  river,  and  steps  in  until  an  inclination  of 
the  head  will  thoroughly  immerse  him.  He  bows  once  into 
the  flood,  and  comes  up  and  shakes  the  water  out  of  nostrils 
and  eyes ;  and  his  attendants  look  at  him  and  say,  "  Why, 
general,  how  much  better  you  look."  And  he  bows  a 
second  time  into  the  flood  and  comes  up,  and  the  wild  stare 
is  gone  out  of  his  eye.  He  bows  the  third  time  in  the  flood 
and  comes  up,  and  the  shrivelled  flesh  has  got  smooth  again. 
He  bows  the  fourth  time  into  the  flood  and  comes  up,  and 
the  hair  that  had  fallen  out  is  restored  in  thick  locks  again 
all  over  the  brow.  He  bows  the  fifth  time  into  the  flood 
and  comes  up,  and  the  hoarseness  has  gone  out  of  his  throat. 
He  bows  the  sixth  time  and  comes  up,  and  all  the  soreness 
and  anguish  have  gone  out  of  the  limbs.  "  Why,"  he  says, 
"  I  am  almost  well,  but  I  will  make  a  complete  cure,"  and  he 
bows  the  seventh  time  into  the  flood  ;  and  he  comes  up,  and 
not  so  much  as  a  fester,  or  scale,  or  an  eruption  as  big  as  the 
head  of  a  pin  is  to  be  seen  on  him.  He  steps  out  on  the 
bank  and  says,  "Is  it  possible?"  And  the  attendants  look 
and  say,  "Is  it  possible?"  And  as,  with  the  health  of  an 
athlete  he  bounds  back  into  the  chariot  and  drives  on,  there 
goes  up  from  all  his  attendants  a  wild  "  Huzza!  huzza!" 


WHAT  TO   DO. 

You  notice  that  this  General  Naaman  did  two  things  in 
order  to  get  w-ell.  The  first  was — he  got  out  of  his  chariot. 
He  might  have  stayed  there  with  his  swollen  feet  on  the 
stuffed  ottoman,  seated  on  that  embroidered  cushion,  until 
his  last  gasp,  he  w^ould  never  have  got  any  relief.  He  had 
to  get  down  out  of  his  chariot.     And  you   have  got  to  get 


442  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

down  out  of  the  chariot  of  your  pride  if  you  ever  become  a 
Christian.  You  cannot  drive  up  to  the  cross  with  a  coach- 
and-four,  and  be  saved  among  all  the  spangles. 

But  he  had  not  only  to  get  down  out  of  his  chariot.  He 
had  to  wash.  O  my  hearer,  there  is  a  flood  brighter  than 
any  other.  Zechariah  called  it  the  "  fountain  open  for  sin 
and  uncleanness."  William  Cowper  called  it  the  "  fountain 
filled  with  blood."  Plunge  once,  twice,  thrice,  four  times, 
five  times,  six  times,  seven  times.  It  will  take  as  much  as 
that  to  cure  your  soul.     Oh,  wash,  and  be  clean  I 

I  suppose  that  was  a  great  time  at  Damascus  when  Gen- 
eral Naaman  got  back.  The  charioteers  did  not  have  to 
drive  slowly  any  longer,  lest  they  jolt  the  invalid  ;  but  as  the 
horses  dashed  through  the  streets  of  Damascus,  I  think  the 
people  rushed  out  to  hail  back  their  chieftain.  Naaman's 
wife  hardly  recognized  her  husband  ;  he  was  so  wonderfully 
changed  she  had  to  look  at  him  two  or  three  times  before 
she  made  out  that  it  was  her  restored  husband.  And  the 
little  captive  maid,  she  rushed  out,  clapping  her  hands,  and 
shouting,  "  Did  he  cure  you?  Did  he  cure  you  ?"  Then 
music  woke  up  the  palace,  and  the  tapestry  of  the  windows 
was  drawn  away,  that  the  multitude  outside  might  mingle 
with  the  princely  mirth  inside,  and  the  feet  went  up  and 
down  in  the  dance,  and  all  the  streets  of  Damascus  that 
nic^ht  echoed  and  re-echoed  with  the  news,  "  Naaman 
is  cured  I      Naaman  is  cured  !" 

But  a  gladder  tune  than  that  it  would  be  if  the  soul 
should  get  cured  of  its  leprosy.  The  swiftest  white  horse 
hitched  to  the  King's  chariot  would  rush  the  news  into  the 
Eternal  City.  Our  loved  ones  before  the  throne  would  wel- 
come the  glad  tidings.  Your  children  on  earth,  with  more 
emotion  than  the  little  Hebrew  captive,  would  notice  the 
change  in  your  look,  and  the  change  in  your  manner,  and 
would  put  their  arms  around  your  neck  and  say,  "  Mother, 
I  guess  you  must  have  become  a  Christian.  Father,  I  think 
you  have  got  rid  of  the  leprosy."  0  Lord  God  of  Elisha, 
have  mercy  on  us  ! 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
The  Well  at  the  Gate. 

"  Oh  that  one  would  give  me  drink  of  the  water  of  the  well  of  Beth- 
lehem, which  is  by  the  gate."     ii  Sam.  23  :  15. 

War,  always  distressing,  is  especially  ruinous  in  harvest- 
time.  When  the  crops  are  all  ready  for  the  sickle,  to  have 
them  trodden  down  by  cavalry  horses,  and  heavy  supply- 
trains  gullying  the  fields,  is  enough  to  make  any  man's  heart 
sick.  When  the  last  great  war  broke  out  in  Europe,  and 
France  and  Germany  were  coming  into  horrid  collision,  I 
rode  past  their  golden  harvest-fields  and  saw  tents  pitched 
and  the  trenches  dug  in  the  very  midst  of  the  ripe  fields, 
the  long  scythe  of  battle  sharpening  to  mow  down  harvests 
of  men  in  great  winrows  of  the  dead.  It  was  at  this  season 
of  harvest  that  the  army  of  the  Philistines  came  down  upon 
Bethlehem.  Hark  to  the  clamor  of  their  voices,  the  neigh- 
ing of  their  chargers,  the  blare  of  their  trumpets  and  the 
clash  of  their  shields  ! 

Let  David  and  his  men  fall  back !  The  Lord's  host 
sometimes  loses  the  day.  But  David  knew  where  to  hide. 
He  had  been  brought  up  in  that  country.  Boys  are  inquisi- 
tive, and  they  know  all  about  the  region  where  they  were 
born  and  brought  up.  If  you  should  go  back  to  the  old 
homestead,  you  could,  with  your  eyes  shut,  find  your  way 
to  the  meadow,  or  the  orchard,  or  the  hill  back  of  the  house, 
with  which  you  were  familiar  thirty  or  forty  years  ao-o.  So 
David  knew  the  Cave  of  Adullam.  Perhaps,  in  his  boyhood 
days,  he  had  played  "  hide-and-seek  "  with  his  comrades  all 
about  the  old  cave ;  and  though  others  might  not  have 
known  it,  David  did.  Travellers  say  there  is  only  one  way 
of  getting  into  that  cave,  and  that  is  by  a  very  narrow  path  ; 
but  David  was  stout    and  steady-headed  and  steady-nerved; 

443 


444  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

and  so,  with  his  three  brave  staff-officers,  he  goes  along  that 
path,  finds  his  way  into  the  cave,  sits  down,  looks  around 
at  the  roof  and  the  dark  passages  of  the  mountain,  feels  very 
weary  with  the  forced  march,  and  water  he  must  have,  or 
die. 

I  do  not  know  but  there  may  have  been  drops  trickling 
down  the  side  of  the  cavern,  or  that  there  may  have  been 
some  water  in  the  goat-skin  slung  to  his  girdle  ;  but  that 
was  not  what  he  wanted.  He  wanted  a  deep,  full,  cold 
drink,  such  as  a  man  gets  only  out  of  an  old  well  with  moss- 
covered  bucket.  David  remembered  that  very  near  that 
cave  of  Adullam  there  was  such  a  well  as  that,  a  well  to 
which  he  used  to  go  in  boyhood — the  well  of  Bethlehem  ; 
and  he  almost  imagines  that  he  can  hear  the  liquid  plash  of 
that  well,  and  his  parched  tongue  moves  through  his  hot 
lips  as  he  says,  "  Oh,  that  one  would  give  me  drink  of  the 
water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate  !" 

It  was  no  sooner  said  than  done.  The  three  brave  staff- 
officers  bound  to  their  feet  and  start.  Brave  soldiers  will 
take  even  a  hint  from  the  commander.  But  between  them 
and  the  well  lay  the  host  of  the  Philistines ;  and  what  could 
three  men  do  with  a  great  army  ?  Yet  where  there  is  a  will 
there  is  a  way,  and,  with  their  swords  slashing  this  way  and 
that,  they  make  their  path  to  the  well.  While  the  Philis- 
tines are  amazed  at  the  seeming  fool-hardiness  of  these 
three  men,  and  cannot  make  up  their  minds  exactly  what  it 
means,  the  three  men  have  come  to  the  well.  They  drop 
the  bucket.  They  bring  up  the  water.  They  pour  it  in  the 
pail,  and  then  start  for  the  cave.  "  Stop  them  !"  cry  the 
Philistines.  "  Clip  them  with  your  swords !  Stab  them 
with  your  spears !  Stop  those  three  men  !"  Too  late  ! 
They  have  got  around  the  hill.  The  hot  rocks  are  splashed 
with  the  overflowing  water  from  the  vessel  as  it  is  carried 
up  the  cliffs.  The  three  men  go  along  the  dangerous  path, 
and  with  cheeks  flushed  with  the  excitement,  and  all  out  of 
breath  in  their  haste,  they  fling  their  swords  red  with  the 
skirmish,  to  the  side  of  the  cave,  and  cry  out  to  David  : 
"There,  captain  of  the  host,  is  what  you  wanted,  a  drink  of 
the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate  !" 


THE    WELL   AT   THE   GATE.  445 

David  had  known  hundreds  of  wells  of  water,  but  he 
wanted  to  drink  from  that  particular  one,  and  he  thought 
nothing  could  slake  his  thirst  like  that.  And  unless  your 
soul  and  mine  can  get  access  to  the  Fountain  open  for  sin 
and  uncleanness,  we  must  die.  That  fountain  is  the  well  of 
Bethlehem.  It  was  dug  in  the  night.  It  was  dug  by  the 
light  of  a  lantern — the  star  that  hung  down  over  the  manger. 
It  was  dug  not  at  the  gate  of  Ceesar's  palaces,  not  in  the 
park  of  a  Jerusalem  bargain-maker.  It  was  dug  in  a  barn. 
The  camels  lifted  their  weary  heads  to  listen  as  the  work 
went  on.  The  shepherds,  unable  to  sleep,  because  the 
heavens  were  filled  with  bands  of  music,  came  down  to  see 
the  opening  of  the  well.  The  angels  of  God,  at  the  first 
gush  of  the  living  water,  dipped  their  chalices  of  joy  into  it, 
and  drank  to  the  health  of  earth  and  heaven,  as  they  cried, 
"  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace."  Some- 
times in  our  modern  barns  the  water  is  brought  through  the 
pipes  of  the  city  to  the  very  nostrils  of  the  horses  or  cattle  ; 
but  this  well  in  the  Bethlehem  barn  was  not  so  much  for  the 
beasts  that  perish  as  for  our  thirst-smitten  race,  desert-trav- 
elled and  simoon-struck.  Oh,  my  soul,  weary  with  sin,  stoop 
down  and  drink  to-day  out  of  that  Bethlehem  well ! 

Bring  me  some  of  that  water.  Whosoever  drinketh  of 
that  water  shall  never  thirst.  "  Oh,  that  one  would  give  me 
drink  of  the  water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the 
gate." 

A  few  days  ago  I  was  in  the  country,  thirsty  after  a  long 
walk.  And  I  came  in,  and  my  child  was  blowing  soap 
bubbles,  and  they  rolled  out  of  the  cup,  blue,  and  gold,  and 
green,  and  sparkling,  and  beautiful,  and  orbicular,  and  in  so 
small  a  space  I  never  saw  more  splendor  concentrated.  But 
she  blew  once  too  often  and  all  the  glory  vanished  into  suds. 
Then  I  turned  and  took  a  glass  of  water,  and  was  refreshed. 
And  so  far  as  soul  thirst  is  conccmed,  I  put  against  all  the 
blowing  of  ghttering  soap  bubbles  a  pure  draught  of  water 
from  salvation's  well. 

The  Gospel  w^ell,  like  the  one  here  spoken  of,  is  a  cap- 
tured well.     David  remembered  the  time  when   that  good 


44^  IKUMI'Er   PEALS. 

water  of  Bethlehem  was  in  the  possession  of  his  ancestors. 
His  father  drank  there,  his  mother  drank  there,  lie  remem- 
bered how  the  water  tasted  when  he  was  a  boy. 

David  thought  of  that  well,  that  boyhood  well,  and  he 
wanted  a  drink  of  it,  but  he  remembered  that  the  Philistines 
had  captured  it.  When  those  three  men  tried  to  come  up 
to  the  well  in  behalf  of  David,  they  saw  swords  gleaming 
around  about  it.  And  this  is  true  of  this  Gospel  well.  The 
Philistines  have  at  times  captured  it.  When  wc  come  to 
take  a  full,  old-fashioned  drink  of  pardon  and  comfort,  do 
not  their  swords  of  indignation  and  sarcasm  flash  ?  Why, 
the  skeptics  tell  us  that  we  cannot  come  to  that  fountain  ! 
They  say  the  water  is  not  fit  to  drink,  anyhow.  "  If  you  are 
really  thirsty  now,  there  is  the  well  of  philosophy,  there  is 
the  well  of  art,  there  is  the  well  of  science."  They  try  to 
substitute,  instead  of  our  boyhood  faith,  a  modern  mixture. 
They  say  a  great  many  beautiful  things  about  the  soul,  and 
they  try  to  feed  our  immortal  hunger  on  rose-leaves,  and  mix 
a  mint-julep  of  worldly  stimulants,  when  nothing  will  satisfy 
us  but  a  drink  of  the  water  of  the  well  of  "  Bethlehem,  which 
is  at  the  gate." 

I  tell  you  the  old  Gospel  well  is  a  captured  well.  I  pray 
God  that  there  may  be  somewhere  in  the  elect  host  three 
anointed  men,  with  courage  enough  to  go  forth  in  the 
strength  of  the  omnipotent  God,  with  the  glittering  swords 
of  truth,  to  hew  the  way  back  again  to  that  old  well. 

Depend  upon  it,  that  well  will  come  into  our  possession 
again,  though  it  has  been  captured.  If  there  be  not  three 
anointed  men  in  the  Lord's  host,  with  enough  consecration 
to  do  the  work,  then  the  swords  will  leap  from  Jehovah's 
buckler,  and  the  Eternal  Three  will  descend — God  the 
Father,  God  the  Son,  God  the  Holy  Ghost  — conquering  for 
our  dying  race  the  way  back  again  to  "the  water  of  the  well 
of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate." 

The  Gospel  well,  like  the  one  spoken  of,  is  a  well  at  the 
gate.  The  traveller  stops  the  camel  to-day,  and  gets  down, 
and  dips  out  of  the  valley  of  the  East,  some  very  beautiful, 
clear,  bright  water,  and   that    is  out  of    the   very  well   that 


IIIE    WELL   AT    THE    GATE.  447 

David  longed  for.  Do  you  know  that  that  well  was  at  the 
gate,  so  that  nobody  could  go  into  Bethlehem  without  go- 
ing right  past  it  ?  And  so  it  is  with  this  Gospel  well — it  is 
at  the  gate.  It  is,  in  the  first  place,  at  the  gate  of  purifica- 
tion. 

Angel  of  the  Covenant,  dip  thy  wing  into  this  living 
fountain  to-day,  and  wave  it  over  us,  that  our  souls  may  be 
washed  in  "  the  water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by 
the  gate !" 

This  well  is  at  the  gate  of  comfort.  Do  you  know  where 
David  was  when  he  uttered  the  words  of  the  text.  He  was 
in  the  cave  of  Adullam.  That  is  where  some  of  you  are 
now.  And  I  break  through  the  armed  ranks  of  your  sor- 
rows to-day,  and  bring  to  your  parched  lips  "  a  drink  of  the 
water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem  which  is  by  the  gate." 

Finally,  the  Gospel  well  is  at  the  gate  of  heaven.  After 
you  have  been  on  a  long  journey,  and  you  come  in,  all  be- 
dusted  and  tired  to  your  hom.e,  the  first  thing  you  want  is 
refreshing  ablution,  and  I  am  glad  to  know  that  after  we  get 
through  the  pilgrimage  of  this  world — the  hard,  dusty  pil- 
grimage— we  will  find  a  well  at  the  gate.  In  that  one  wash, 
away  will  go  our  sins  and  sorrows.  I  do  not  care  whether 
cherub  or  seraph,  or  my  own  departed  friends  in  that  blessed 
land,  place  to  my  hps  the  cup,  the  touch  of  that  cup  will  be 
life,  will  be  heaven !  I  was  reading  of  how  the  ancients 
sought  for  the  fountain  of  perpetual  youth.  They  thought  if 
they  could  only  find  and  drink  out  of  that  well,  the  old 
would  become  young  again,  the  sick  would  be  cured,  and 
everybody  would  have  eternal  juvenescence.  Of  course 
they  could  not  find  it.  Eureka!  I  have  found  it!  "the 
water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate." 

I  think  we  had  better  make  a  bargain  with  those  who 
leave  us,  going  out  of  this  world  from  time  to  time,  as  to 
where  we  will  meet  them.  Travellers  parting  appoint  a 
place  of  meeting.  They  say  :  "  We  will  meet  at  Rome,  or  we 
will  meet  at  Stockholm,  or  Vienna,  or  Jerusalem,  or  Bethle- 
hem." Now,  when  we  come  to  stand  by  the  death-pillow 
of  those  who  are  leaving  us  for  the  far  land,  do  not  let  us 


448  IRUMriiT  PEALS. 

weep  as  though  we  would  never  sec  them  again,  but  let  us, 
there  standing,  appoint  a  place  where  we  will  meet.  Where 
shall  it  be  ?  Shall  it  be  on  the  banks  of  the  river?  No  ;  the 
banks  arc  too  long.  Shall  it  be  in  the  temple?  No,  no  ;  there 
is  such  a  host  there — ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand. 
Where  shall  we  meet  our  loved  ones?  Let  us  make  an  ap- 
pointment to  meet  at  the  well  by  the  gate.  Oh,  heaven  I 
Sweet  heaven  !  Dear  heaven  !  Heaven,  where  our  good 
friends  arc  !  Heaven,  where  Jesus  is  !  Heaven  !  Heaven  ! 
But  there  comes  a  revulsion  of  feeling  when  I  know 
there  are  souls  dying  of  thirst  notwithstanding  the  w'cll  at 
the  gate.  Between  you  and  the  well  of  heaven  there  is  a 
great  army  of  sin  ;  but  Christ  is  ready  to  clear  a  way  to  that 
well,  and  I  am  glad  to  know  that  you  may  come  yet.  The 
wxll  is  here — the  well  of  heaven.  Come  ;  I  do  not  care  how 
feeble  you  are.  Let  me  take  hold  of  your  arm,  and  steady 
you  up  to  the  well-curb.  "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirstcth, 
come." 


CHAPTER  XX. 
Character-Building. 

PLUMB-LINE   RELIGION. 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos,  what  seest  thou?    And  I 
said,  a  plumb-line." — Amos  7:8 

I  WANT  you  to  notice  this  fact,  that  when  a  man  gives  up 
the  straight  up-and-down  reUgion  in  the  Bible  for  any  new- 
fangled religion,  it  is  gejicrally  to  suit  his  sins.  You  first 
hear  of  his  change  of  religion,  and  then  you  hear  of  some 
swindle  he  has  practised  in  Colorado  mining  stock,  telling 
some  one  if  he  will  put  in  ten  thousand  dollars  he  can  take 
out  a  hundred  thousand,  or  he  has  sacrificed  his  chastity,  or 
plunged  into  irremediable  worldliness.  His  sins  are  so  broad 
he  has  to  broaden  his  religion,  and  he  becomes  as  broad  as 
temptation,  as  broad  as  the  soul's  darkness,  as  broad  as 
hell.  They  want  a  religion  that  will  allow  them  to  keep 
their  sins,  and  then  at  death  say  to  them  :  "  Well  done, 
good  and  faithful  servant,"  and  that  tells  them  :  "  All  is 
well,  for  there  is  no  hell."  What  a  glorious  heaven  they 
hold  before  us!  Come,  let  us  go  in  and  see  it.  There 
is  Herod  and  all  the  babes  he  massacred.  There  is  Charles 
Guiteau,  and  Jim  Fiske,  and  Robespierre,  the  friend  of 
the  French  guillotine,  and  all  the  liars,  thieves,  house- 
burners,  garroters,  pick-pockets  and  libertines  of  all  the  cen- 
turies. They  have  all  got  crowns,  and  thrones,  and  harps, 
and  sceptres,  and  when  they  chant  they  sing :  "  Thanks- 
giving, and  honor,  and  glory,  and  power  to  the  Broad  Re- 
ligion that  lets  us  all  into  heaven  without  repentance,  and 
faith  in  those  disgraceful  dogmas  of  ecclesiastical  old-fogy- 
ism."     All  sorts  of  religions  are  putting  forth  their  preten- 

449 


450  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

sions.  Some  have  a  spiritualistic  religion,  and  their  chief 
work  is  with  ghosts,  and  others  a  religion  of  political  econ- 
omy, proposing  to  put  an  end  to  human  misery  by  a  new 
style  of  taxation,  and  there  is  a  humanitarian  religion  that 
looks  after  the  body  of  men  and  lets  the  soul  look  after  it- 
self, and  there  is  a  legislative  religion  that  proposes  to  rec- 
tify all  wrongs  by  enactment  of  better  laws,  and  there  is  an 
aisthctic  religion  that  by  rules  of  exquisite  taste  would  lift 
the  heart  out  of  its  deformities,  and  religions  of  all  sorts, 
religions  by  the  peck,  religions  by  the  square  foot,  and 
relifrions  by  the  ton — all  of  them  devices  of  the  devil  that 
would  take  the  heart  away  from  the  only  religion  that  will 
ever  effect  anything  for  the  human  race,  and  that  is  the 
straight  up-and-down  religion  written  in  the  book,  which 
begins  with  Genesis  and  ends  with  Revelation,  the  religion 
of  the  skies,  the  old  religion,  the  God-given  religion,  the 
everlasting  religion,  which  says,  "  Love  God  above  all  and 
your  neighbor  as  yourself."  All  religions  but  one  begin  at 
the  wrong  end,  and  in  the  wrong  place.  Bible  religion 
demands  that  we  first  get  right  with  God.  It  begins  at  the 
top  and  measures  down,  while  the  other  religions  begin  at 
the  bottom  and  try  to  measure  up.  They  stand  at  the  foot 
of  the  wall,  up  to  their  knees  in  the  mud  of  human  theory 
and  speculation,  and  have  a  plummet  and  a  string  tied  fast 
to  it.  And  they  throw  the  plummet  this  way,  and  break  a 
head  there,  and  throw  the  plummet  another  way  and  break 
a  head  there,  and  then  they  throw  it  up,  and  it  comes  down 
upon  their  own  pate.  Fools !  Why  will  you  stand  at  the 
foot  of  the  wall  measuring  up  when  you  ought  to  stand  at 
the  top  measuring  down  ? 


rLUMB-LTNE  RECTITUDE. 

The  solid  masonry  of  the  world  has  to  me  a  fascination. 
Walk  about  some  of  the  triumphal  arches  and  the  cathe- 
drals, four  or  six  hundred  years  old,  and  sec  them  stand  as 
erect  as  when  they  were  builded,  walls  of  great  height,  for 
centuries  not  bending  a  quarter  of  an  inch  this  way  or  that. 


CHA'RA  CTER-B  UILDING.  45 1 

So  greatly  honored  were  the  masons  who  builded  these 
walls  that  they  were  free  from  taxation  and  called  "  free  " 
masons.  The  trowel  gets  most  of  the  credit  for  these  build- 
ings, and  its  clear  ringing  on  stone  and  brick  has  sounded 
across  the  ages.  But  there  is  another  implement  of  just  as 
much  importance  as  the  trowel,  and  my  text  recognizes  it. 
Bricklayers  and  stone-masons,  and  carpenters,  in  the  build- 
ing of  walls,  use  an  instrument  made  of  a  cord,  at  the  end 
of  which  a  lump  of  lead  is  fastened.  They  drop  it  over  the 
side  of  the  wall,  and,  as  the  plummet  naturally  seeks  the 
centre  of  gravity  in  the  earth,  the  workman  discovers  where 
the  wall  recedes,  and  where  it  bulges  out,  and  just  what 
is  the  perpendicular.  Our  text  represents  God  as  standing 
on  the  wall  of  character,  which  the  Israelites  had  built,  and, 
in  that  way,  testing  it.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto  me, 
Amos,  what  seest  thou  ?  And  I  said,  A  plumb-line."  What 
the  world  wants  is  a  straight  up-and-down  religion.  Much 
of  the  so-called  piety  of  the  day  bends  this  way  and  that,  to 
suit  the  times.  It  is  horizontal,  with  a  low  state  of  sentiment 
and  morals.  We  have  all  been  building  a  wall  of  character, 
and  it  is  glaringly  imperfect,  and  needs  reconstruction. 
How  shall  it  be  brought  into  perpendicular?  Only  by  the 
divine  measurement.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos, 
what  seest  thou?  And  I  said,  A  plumb-line." 

The  whole  tendency  of  the  times  is  to  make  us  act  by 
the  standard  of  what  others  do.  If  they  play  cards,  we 
play  cards.  If  they  dance,  we  dance.  If  they  read  certain 
styles  of  book,  we  read  them.  We  throw  over  the  wall  of 
our  character  the  tangled  plumb  line  of  other  lives  and  re- 
ject the  infallible  test  which  Amos  saw. 


PLUMB-LINE  TRAFFIC. 

The  divine  plumb-line  needs  to  be  \hxo\vVi  over  all  mer- 
chandise. Nothing  would  make  times  so  good,  and  the 
earning  of  a  livelihood  so  easy,  as  the  universal  adoption  of 
the  law  of  right.  Suspicion  strikes  through  all  ba^-gain- 
making.     Men  who  sell  know  not  whether  they  will  ever  get 


452  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  money,  rurchascis  know  not  whether  the  goods  ship- 
ped will  be  according  to  the  sample.  And  what  with  the 
lar'^e  number  of  clerks  who  are  making  false  entries  and  then 
absconding  to  Canada,  and  the  explosion  of  firms  that  fail 
for  millions  of  dollars,  honest  men  arc  at  their  wits'  end  to 
make  a  living.  He  who  stands  up  amid  all  the  pressure  and 
docs  right  is  accomplishing  something  toward  the  establish- 
ment of  a  high  commercial  prosperity.  I  have  deep  sym- 
pathy for  the  laboring  classes  who  toil  with  hand  and  foot. 
But  we  must  not  forget  the  business  men,  who,  without  any 
complaint  or  bannered  processions  through  the  street,  are 
enduring  a  stress  of  circumstances  terrific. 

To  feel  right  and  to  do  right  under  all  this  pressure  re- 
quires martyr  grace,  requires  divine  support,  requires  celes- 
tial reinforcement.  But  you  will  be  wise  to  preserve  your 
equilibrium  and  your  honesty  and  your  faith,  and  throw 
over  all  the  counters  and  shelves  and  casks,  the  measuring 
line  of  divine  light.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos, 
what  seest  thou  ?  And  I  said,  A  plumb-line." 


LEANING   TOWER  OF  PISA. 

The  question  for  me  should  not  be  what  I  think  is  right, 
but  what  God  thinks  is  right.  This  perpetual  reference  to 
the  behavior  of  others,  as  though  it  decided  anything  but 
human  fallibility,  is  a  mistake  as  wide  as  the  world.  There 
are  ten  thousand  pliimh-lincs  in  use,  but  only  one  is  true  and 
exact,  and  that  is  the  line  of  God's  eternal  right.  There  is  a 
mighty  attempt  being  made  to  reconstruct  and  fix  up  the 
Ten  Commandments.  To  many  they  seem  too  rigid.  The 
toivcr  of  Pisa  leans  over  about  thirteen  feet  from  the  perpen- 
dicular, and  people  go  thousands  of  miles  to  see  its  graceful 
inclination,  and,  by  extra  braces  and  various  architectural 
contrivances,  it  is  kept  leaning  from  century  to  century. 
Why  not  have  the  ten  granite  blocks  of  Sinai  set  a  little 
aslant  ?  Why  not  have  the  pillar  of  truth  a  leaning  tower? 
Why  is  not  an  ellipse  as  good  as  a  square  ?     Why  is  not  an 


CHARACTER-BUILDING.  453 

oblique  as  good  as  straight  up  and  down  ?     My  friends,  we 
must  have  a  standard  ;  shall  it  be  God's  or  man's? 

This  subject  gives  me  a  grand  opportunity  of  saying  a 
useful  word  to  all  young  men  who  are  now  forming  habits 
for  a  lifetime.  Of  what  use  to  a  stone-mason  or  a  bricklayer 
is  a  plumb-line  ?  Why  not  build  the  wall  by  the  unaided 
eye  and  hand  ?  Because  they  are  insufficient,  because  if 
there  be  a  deflection  in  the  wall  it  cannot  further  on  be  cor- 
rected. Because  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  a  wall  must  be 
straight  in  order  to  be  symmetrical  and  safe.  A  young  man 
is  in  danger  of  getting  a  defect  in  his  wall  of  character  that 
may  never  be  corrected.  One  of  the  best  friends  I  ever  had 
died  of  delirium  tremens  at  sixty  years  of  age,  though  he 
had  not  since  twenty-one  years  of  age — before  which  he  had 
been  dissipated — touched  intoxicating  liquor  until  that  par- 
ticular carousal  that  took  him  off.  Not  feeling  well  in  the 
street  on  a  hot  summer  day,  he  stepped  into  a  drug  store, 
just  as  you  and  I  would  have  done,  and  asked  for  a  dose  of 
something  to  make  him  feel  better.  And  there  was  alcohol 
in  the  dose,  and  that  one  drop  aroused  the  old  appetite,  and 
he  entered  the  first  liquor  store,  and  stayed  there  until 
thoroughly  under  the  power  of  rum.  He  entered  his  home 
a  raving  maniac,  his  wife  and  daughters  fleeing  from  his  pres- 
ence, until  he  was  taken  to  the  city  hospital  to  die.  The 
combustible  material  of  early  habit  had  lain  quiet  nearly 
forty  years,  and  that  one  spark  ignited  it. 

Remember  that  the  wall  may  be  one  hundred  feet  [high, 
and  yet  a  deflection  one  foot  from  the  foundation  affects  the 
entire  structure.  And  if  you  live  a  hundred  years  and  do 
right  the  last  eighty  years,  you  may  nevertheless  do  some- 
thing at  twenty  years  of  age  that  will  damage  all  your  earthly 
existence.  All  you  who  have  built  houses  for  yourselves,  or 
for  others,  am  I  not  right  in  saying  to  these  young  men,  you 
cannot  build  a  wall  so  high  as  to  be  independent  of  the  char- 
acter of  its  foundation  ?  A  man  before  thirty  years  of  age 
may  commit  enough  sin  to  last  him  a  lifetime.  Now,  John, 
or  George,  or  Henry,  or  whatever  be  your  Christian  name  or 
surname,  say  here  and  now  :  "  No  wild  oats  for  me,  no  cigars 


454  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

or  cigarettes  for  me,  no  wine  or  beer  for  me,  no  nasty  stories 
for  mc,  no  Sunday  sprees  for  me  ;  I  am  going  to  start  right 
and  keep  on  right.  God  help  me,  for  I  am  very  weak.  From 
the  throne  of  eternal  righteousness  let  down  to  me  the  prin- 
ples  by  which  I  can  be  guided  in  building  everything  from 
foundation  to  cap-stone.  Lord  God,  by  the  wounded  hand  of 
Christ,  throw  me  a  plumb-line." 


CHAPTER  XXI. 
Heaven. 

THE    WAY   TO    HEAVEN. 

You  have  heard  of  the  Appian  way.  It  was  three  hund- 
red and  fifty  miles  long.  It  was  twenty-four  feet  wide,  and 
on  either  side  the  road  was  a  path  for  foot  passengers.  It 
was  made  out  of  rocks  cut  in  hexagonal  shape  and  fitted 
together.  What  a  road  it  must  have  been  !  Made  of  smooth, 
hard  rock,  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  long.  No  wonder 
that  in  the  construction  of  it  the  treasures  of  a  whole  empire 
were  exhausted.  Because  of  invaders,  and  the  elements, 
and  Time — the  old  conqueror  who  tears  up  a  road  as  he 
goes  over  it — there  is  nothing  left  of  that  structure  except- 
ing a  ruin.  But  I  have  to  tell  you  of  a  road  built  before 
the  Appian  Way,  and  yet  it  is  as  good  as  when  first  con- 
structed. Millions  of  souls  have  gone  over  it.  Millions 
more  will  come. 

"  The  prophets  and  apostles,  too, 
Pursued  this  road  while  here  below  ; 
We  therefore  will,  without  dismay, 
Still  walk  in  Christ,  the  good  old  way." 

"  An  highway  shall  be  there,  and  a  way,  and  it  shall  be 
called  The  Way  of  Holiness  ;  the  unclean  shall  not  pass  over 
it ;  but  it  shall  be  for  those ;  the  wayfaring  men,  though 
fools,  shall  not  err  therein.  No  lion  shall  be  there,  nor  any 
ravenous  beast  shall  go  up  thereon,  it  shall  n6t  be  found 
there  ;  but  the  redeemed  shall  walk  there  ;  and  the  ransomed 
of  the  Lord  shall  return,  and  come  to  Zion  with  songs  and 
everlasting  joy  upon  their  heads  :  they  shall  obtain  joy  and 
gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away." 

455 


456  TRUMPET  PEALS. 


THE    KINGS    HIGHWAY. 

In  the  diligence  you  dash  on  over  the  St.-Bernard  pass  of 
the  Alps,  mile  after  mile,  and  there  is  not  so  much  as  a 
pebble  to  jar  the  wheels.  You  go  over  bridges  which  cross 
chasms  that  make  you  hold  your  breath ;  under  projecting 
rock  ;  along  by  dangerous  precipices  ;  through  tunnels  adrip 
with  the  meltings  of  the  glaciers ;  and,  perhaps,  for  the  first 
time,  learn  the  majesty  of  a  road  built  and  supported  by 
governmental  authority.  Well,  my  Lord  the  King  decided 
to  build  a  highway  from  earth  to  heaven. 

It  should  span  all  the  chasms  of  human  wretchedness , 
it  should  tunnel  all  the  mountains  of  earthly  difficulty ;  it 
should  be  wide  enough  and  strong  enough  to  hold  fifty 
thousand  millions  of  the  human  race,  if  so  many  of  them 
should  ever  be  born.  It  should  be  blasted  out  of  the  "  Rock 
of  Ages,"  and  cemented  with  the  blood  of  the  Cross,  and  be 
lifted  amid  the  shouting  of  angels  and  the  execration  of 
devils. 

The  King  sent  His  Son  to  build  that  road.  He  put  head, 
and  hand,  and  heart  to  it,  and  after  the  road  was  completed 
waved  His  blistered  hand  over  the  way,  crying:  "It  is 
finished !"  Napoleon  paid  fifteen  million  francs  for  the 
building  of  the  Simplon  Road,  that  his  cannon  might  go 
over  for  the  devastation  of  Italy ;  but  our  King,  at  a  greater 
expense,  has  built  a  road  for  a  different  purpose,  that  the 
banners  of  heavenly  dominion  might  come  down  over  it,  and 
all  the  redeemed  of  earth  travel  up  over  it. 

Being  a  King's  highway,  of  course,  it  is  well  built. 
Bridges  splendidly  arched  and  buttressed  have  given  way. 
and  crushed  the  passengers  who  attempted  to  cross  them. 
But  Christ,  the  King,  would  build  no  such  thing  as  that. 
The  work  done.  He  mounts  the  chariot  of  His  love,  and 
multitudes  mount  with  Him,  and  He  drives  on  and  up  the 
steep  of  heaven,  amid  the  plaudits  of  gazing  worlds!  The 
work  is  done — well  done — gloriously  done — magnificently 
done. 


HEAVEN.  457 


A   CLEAN   ROAD. 

Many  a  fine  road  has  become  miry  and  foul  because  it 
has  not  been  properly  cared  for ;  but  my  text  says  the 
unclean  shall  not  walk  on  this  one.  Room  on  either  side  to 
throw  away  your  sins.  Indeed,  if  you  want  to  carry  them 
along  you  are  not  on  the  right  road.  That  bridge  will 
break,  those  overhanging  rocks  will  fall,  the  night  will  come 
down,  leaving  you  at  the  mercy  of  the  mountain  bandits, 
and  at  the  very  next  turn  of  the  road  you  will  perish.  But 
if  you  are  really  on  this  clean  road  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking,  then  you  will  stop  ever  and  anon  to  wash  in  the 
water  that  stands  in  the  basin  of  the  eternal  Rock. 


A   PLAIN    ROAD. 

"  The  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  shall  not  err  therein." 
That  is,  if  a  man  is  three-fourths  an  idiot,  he  can  find  this 
road  just  as  well  as  if  he  were  a  philosopher.  The  imbecile 
boy,  the  laughing-stock  of  the  street,  and  followed  by  a  mob 
hooting  at  him,  has  only  just  to  knock  once  at  the  gate  of 
heaven,  and  it  swings  open  ;  while  there  has  been  many  a 
man  who  can  lecture  about  pneumatics,  and  chemistry,  and 
tell  the  story  of  Farraday's  theory  of  electrical  polarization, 
and  yet  has  been  shut  out  of  heaven.  But  if  one  shall  come 
in  the  right  spirit,  seeking  the  way  to  heaven,  he  will  find  it 
a  plain  way. 

He  who  tries  to  get  on  the  road  to  heaven  through  the 
New  Testament  teaching  will  get  on  beautifully.  He  who 
goes  through  philosophical  discussion  will  not  get  on  at  all. 
If  you  wanted  to  go  to  Albany,  and  I  pointed  you  out  a 
highway  thoroughly  laid  out,  would  I  be  wise  in  detaining 
you  by  a  geological  discussion  about  the  gravel  you  will  pass 
over,  or  a  physiological  discussion  about  the  muscles  you 
will  have  to  bring  into  play  ?  No.  After  this  Bible  has 
pointed  you  the  way  to  heaven,  is  it  wise  for  me  to  detain 
you  with  any  discussion  about  the  nature  of  the  human  will, 


458  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

or  whether  the  atonement  is  hmited  or  unlimited  ?     There 
is  the  road — go  on  it.     It  is  a  plain  way. 

A   SAFE   ROAD. 

Sometimes  the  traveller  in  those  ancient  highways  would 
think  himself  perfectly  secure,  not  knowing  there  was  a  lion 
by  the  way,  burying  his  head  deep  between  his  paws^  and 
then,  when  the  right  moment  came,  under  the  fearful  spring 
the  man's  life  was  gone,  and  there  was  a  mauled  carcass  by 
the  roadside.  But,  says  my  text,  "  No  lion  shall  be  there." 
The  road  spoken  of  is  also 

A   PLEASANT   ROAD. 

God   gives  a  bond   of  indemnity  against  all    evil   to  every 
man  that  treads  it. 

I  pursue  this  subject  only  one  step  further.  I  do  not  care 
how  fine  a  road  you  may  put  mc  on,  I  want  to  know  where 
it  comes  out.  My  God  declares  it  :  "  The  redeemed  of  the 
Lord  come  to  Zion."  You  know  what  Zion  was.  That  was 
the  King's  palace.  It  w^as  a  mountain  fastness.  It  was  im- 
pregnable. And  so  heaven  is  the  fastness  of  the  universe. 
No  howitzer  has  long  enough  range  to  shell  those  towers. 
Let  all  the  batteries  of  earth  and  hell  blaze  away ;  they 
cannot  break  in  those  gates.  Gibraltar  was  taken,  Sebasto- 
pol  was  taken,  Babylon  fell;  but  these  walls  of  heaven  shall 
never  surrender  either  to  human  or  Satanic  besiegement. 
The  Lord  God  Almighty  is  the  defence  of  it.  Great  capital 
of  the  Universe  !     Terminus  of  the  King's  highway! 


VISIONS   OF  HEAVEN. 

Ezekiel,  with  others,  had  been  expatriated,  and  while 
in  foreign  slavery,  standing  on  the  banks  of  the  royal  canal, 
which  he  and  other  serfs  had  been  condemned  to  dig,  by  the 
order  of  Nebuchadnezzar — the  royal  canal  called  the  river 
Chebar — the  illustrious  exile   had   visions   of  heaven.      In- 


HEA  VEN.  459 

deed,  it  is  almost  always  so  that  the  brightest  visions  of 
heaven  come  not  to  those  who  are  on  mountain-top  of  pros- 
perity, but  to  some  John  on  desolate  Patmos,  or  to  some 
Paul  in  Mamertine  dungeon,  or  to  some  Ezekiel  standing  on 
the  banks  of  a  ditch  he  had  been  compelled  to  dig — yea,  to 
the  weary,  to  the  heart-broken,  to  those  whom  sorrow  has 
banished. 

Oh,  what  a  mercy  it  is  that  all  up  and  down  the  Bible 
God  induces  us  to  look  out  toward  other  worlds!  Bible 
astronomy  in  Genesis,  in  Joshua,  in  Job,  in  the  Psalms,  in 
the  prophets,  major  aud  minor,  in  St.  John's  apocalypse, 
practically  saying,  "  Worlds  !  worlds !  worlds  !  "  What  a 
fuss  we  make  about  this  little  bit  of  a  world,  its  existence 
only  a  short  time  between  two  spasms,  the  paroxysm  by 
which  it  was  huried  from  chaos  into  order  and  the  paroxysm 
of  its  demolition! 

And  I  am  glad  that  so  many  texts  call  us  to  look  off  to 
other  worlds,  many  of  them  larger  and  grander  and  more 
resplendent.  "Look  there,"  says  Job,  "at  Mazaroth  and 
Arcturus  and  his  sons!"  "Look  there,"  says  St.  John, 
"  at  the  moon  under  Christ's  feet !  "  "  Look  there,"  says 
Joshua,  "  at  the  sun  standing  still  above  Gibeon  !  "  "  Look 
there,"  says  Moses,  "  at  the  sparkling  firmament !  "  "  Look 
there,"  says  Amos,  the  herdsman,  "  at  the  Seven  Stars  and 
Orion  !  "  Don't  let  us  be  so  sad  about  those  who  shove  off 
from  this  world  under  Christly  pilotage.  Don't  let  us  be  so 
agitated  about  our  own  going  off  this  little  barge  or  sloop  or 
"canal  boat  of  a  world  to  get  on  some  Great  Eastern  of  the 
heavens.  Don't  let  us  persist  in  wanting  to  stay  in  this  barn, 
this  shed,  this  out-house  of  a  world,  when  all  the  king's 
palaces  already  occupied  by  many  of  our  best  friends  are 
swinging  wide  open  their  gates  to  let  us  in. 

Oh,  how  this  widens  and  lifts  and  stimulates  our  expect- 
ation !  How  little  it  makes  the  present,  and  how  stupendous 
It  makes  the  future  ! 

O  Lord  God  of  the  seven  stars  and  Orion,  how  can  I  en- 
dure the  transport,  the  ecstasy,  of  such  a  vision  !  I  must 
obey  His  word  and  seek  Him.    I  will  seek  Him.    I  seek  Him 


460  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

now,  for  I  call  to  mind  that  it  is  not  the  .material  universe 
that  is  most  valuable,  but  the  spiritual,  and  that  each  of  us 
has  a  soul  worth  more  than  all  the  worlds  which  the  inspired 
herdsmen  saw  from  his  booth  on  the  hills  of  Tekoa. 


LONGING  FOR   HOME. 

An  old  Scotchman,  who  had  been  a  soldier  in  one  of  the 
European  wars,  was  sick  and  dying  in  one  of  our  American 
hospitals.  His  one  desire  was  to  see  Scotland  and  his  old 
home,  and  once  again  w^alk  the  heather  of  the  Highlands, 
and  hear  the  bagpipes  of  the  Scotch  regiments.  The  night 
that  the  old  Scotch  soldier  died,  a  young  man,  somewhat 
reckless,  but  kind-hearted,  got  a  company  of  musicians  to 
come  and  play  under  the  old  soldier's  window,  and  among 
the  instruments  there  was  a  bagpipe.  The  instant  that  the 
musicians  began,  the  dying  old  man  in  delirium  said : 
"  Whatte  that,  what's  that  ?  Why,  it's  the  regiments  coming 
home.  That's  the  tune,  yes,  that's  the  tune.  Thank  God, 
I  have  got  home  once  more !  "  "  Bonny  Scotland  and 
Bonny  Doon,"  were  the  last  words  he  uttered  as  he  passed 
up  to  the  highlands  of  the  better  country. 

Hundreds  and  thousands  are  homesick  for  heaven  :  some 
because  you  have  so  many  bereavements,  some  because  you 
have  so  many  temptations,  some  because  you  have  so  many 
ailments,  homesick,  very  homesick,  for  the  fatherland  of 
heaven.  At  our  best  estate  we  are  only  pilgrims  and  stran- 
gers here.  "  Heaven  is  our  home."  Death  will  never  knock 
at  the  door  of  that  mansion,  and  in  all  that  country  there  is 
not  a  single  grave.  How  glad  parents  are  in  holiday  times 
to  gather  their  children  home  again  !  l^ut  I  have  noticed 
that  there  is  almost  always  a  son  or  a  daughter  absent — ab- 
sent from  home,  perhaps  absent  from  the  country,  perhaps 
absent  from  the  world.  Oh,  how  glad  our  Heavenly  Father 
will  be  when  He  gets  all  His  children  home  with  Him  in 
heaven  !  And  how  delightful  it  will  be  for  brothers  and  sis- 
ters to  meet  after  long  separation  !  Once  the)-  parted  at  the 
door  of  the  tomb;  now  they  meet  at  the  door  of  immortal- 


■   HEAVEk.      '       '        '     '     '  461 

ity.  Once  they  saw  only  through  a  glass  darkly ;  now  it  is 
face  to  face ;  corruption,  incorruption  ;  mortality,  immortal- 
ity. Where  are  now  all  their  sins  and  sorrows  and  troubles? 
Overwhelmed  in  the  Red  Sea  of  Death,  while  they  passed 
through  dry-shod. 

Gates  of  pearl,  cap-stones  of  amethyst,  thrones  of  dominion, 
do  not  stir  my  soul  so  much  as  the  thought  of  home.  Once 
there,  let  earthly  sorrows  howl  like  storms  and  roll  like  seas. 
Home  !  Let  thrones  rot  and  empires  wither.  Home  !  Let 
the  world  die  in  earthquake-struggle,  and  be  buried  amid 
procession  of  planets  and  dirge  of  spheres.  Home!  Let 
everlasting  ages  roll  irresistible  sweep.  Home  !  No  sorrow, 
no  crying,  no  tears,  no  death.  But  home,  sweet  home ;  home, 
beautiful  home,  everlasting  home;  home  with  each  other, 
home  with  God. 


A  DREAM. 

• 
One  night  lying  on  my  lounge,  when  very  tired,  my  chil- 
dren all  around  about  me  in  full  romp,  and  hilarity,  and 
laughter  —  on  the  lounge,  half  awake  and  half  asleep,  I  dreamed 
this  dream :  I  was  in  a  far  country.  It  was  not  Persia,  al- 
though more  than  Oriental  luxuriance  crowned  the  cities. 
It  was  not  the  tropics,  although  more  than  tropical  fruitful- 
ness  filled  the  gardens.  It  was  not  Italy,  although  more  than 
Italian  softness  filled  the  air.  And  I  wandered  around  look- 
ing for  thorns  and  nettles,  but  I  found  that  none  of  them 
grew  there,  and  I  saw  the  sun  rise,  and  I  watched  to  see  it 
set,  but  it  sank  not.  And  I  saw  the  people  in  holiday  attire, 
and  I  said :  "  When  will  they  put  off  this  and  put  on  work- 
men's garb,  and  again  delve  in  the  mine  or  swelter  at  the 
forge?"  but  they  never  put  off  the  holiday  attire. 

And  I  wandered  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city  to  find  the 
place  where  the  dead  sleep,  and  I  looked  all  along  the  line 
of  the  beautiful  hills,  the  place  where  the  dead  might  most 
blissfully  sleep,  and  I  saw  towers  and  castles,  but  not  a  mau- 
soleum or  a  monument  or  a  white  slab  could  I  see.  I  went 
into  the  chapel  of  the   great  town,  and   I  said  :  "  Where  do 


462  '  •  '    TRUMPET  PEALS. 

the  poor  worship,  and  where  arc  the  hard  benches  on  which 
they  sit  ?"  And  the  answer  was  made  me,  "  We  have  no 
poor  in  this  country."  And  then  I  wandered  out  to  find  the 
hovels  of  the  destitute,  and  I  found  mansions  of  amber  and 
ivory  and  gold  ;  but  not  a  tear  could  I  see,  not  a  sigh  could 
I  hear,  and  I  was  bewildered,  and  I  sat  down  under  the 
branches  of  a  great  tree,  and  I  said,  "  Where  am  I  ?  And 
whence  comes  all  this  scene  ?" 

And  then  out  from  among  the  leaves,  and  up  the  flowery 
paths,  and  across  the  bright  streams  there  came  a  beautiful 
group,  thronging  all  about  me,  and  as  I  saw  them  come  I 
thought  I  knew  their  step,  and  as  they  shouted  I  thought  I 
knew  their  voices;  but  then  they  were  so  gloriously  arrayed 
in  apparel  such  as  I  had  never  before  witnessed  that  I  bowed 
as  stranger  to  stranger.  But  when  again  they  clapped  their 
hands  and  shouted  "  Welcome,  welcome  !"  the  mystery  all 
vanished,  and  I  found  that  time  had  gone  and  eternity  had 
come, end  we  were  all  together  again  in  our  new  home  in 
heaven.  And  I  looked  around,  and  I  said :  "  Are  we  all 
here?"  and  the  voices  of  many  generations  responded  "  All 
here!"  And  while  tears  of  gladness  were  raining  down  our 
cheeks,  and  the  branches  of  the  Lebanon  cedars  were  clap- 
ping their  hands,  and  the  towers  of  the  great  city  were 
chiming  their  welcome,  we  all  together  began  to  leap  and 
shout  and  sing,  "  Home,  home,  home,  home !" 


REUNION:   A  SIIirWRECKED  FATHER  AND  SON, 

I  heard  of  a  father  and  son  Avho,  among  others  were 
shipwrecked  at  sea.  The  father  and  the  son  climbed  into 
the  rigging.  The  father  held  on,  but  the  son  after  a  while 
lost  his  hold  in  the  rigging  and  was  dashed  down.  The 
father  supposed  he  had  gone  hopelessly  under  the  wave. 
The  next  day  the  father  was  brought  ashore  from  the  rig- 
ging in  an  exhausted  state,  and  laid  in  abed  in  a  fisherman's 
hut,  and  after  many  hours  had  passed  he  came  to  conscious- 
ness, and  saw  lying  beside  him  on  the  same  bed  his  boy. 
Oh  ni)'  friends  !  what  a  glorious  thing  it  will  be  if  we  wake 


HEA  VEN.  463 

up  at  last  to  find  our  loved  ones  beside  us !  The  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  and  four  thousand,  and  the  "  great  multitude 
that  no  man  can  number  " — some  of  our  best  friends  among 
them — we,  after  a  while,  to  join  the  multitude.  Blessed  an- 
ticipation !  The  reunions  of  earth  are  anticipative.  We  are 
not  always  going  to  stay  here.  This  is  not  our  home.  O 
the  reunion  of  patriarchs,  and  apostles,  and  prophets,  and  all 
our  glorified  kindred,  and  that  "  great  multitude  that  no  man 
can  number !" 

Does  it  not  seem  that  heaven  comes  very  near  to  us,  as 
though  our  friends,  whom  we  thought  a  great  way  off,  are 
not  in  the  distance,  but  close  by?  You  have  sometimes 
come  down  to  a  river  at  nightfall,  and  you  have  been  sur- 
prised how  easily  you  could  hear  voices  across  the  river. 
You  shouted  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and  they 
shouted  back.  It  is  said  that  when  George  Whitefield 
preached  in  Third  Street,  Philadelphia,  one  evening  time,  his 
voice  was  heard  clear  across  to  the  New  Jersey  shore. 
When  I  was  a  little  while  chaplain  in  the  army,  I  remember 
how  at  even-tide  we  could  easily  hear  the  voices  of  the 
pickets  across  the  Potomac,  just  when  they  were  using  or- 
dinary tones.  And  as  we  stand  by  the  Jordan  that  divides 
us  from  our  friends  who  are  gone,  it  seems  to  me  we  stand 
on  one  bank  and  they  stand  on  the  other ;  and  it  is  only  a 
narrow  stream,  and  our  voices  go  and  their  voices  come. 

GLORIES   OF   HEAVEN. 

O  that  I  might  show  you  the  glories  with  which  God 
clothes  His  dear  children  in  heaven!  I  wish  I  could  swing 
back  one  of  the  twelve  gates  that  there  might  dash  upon 
your  ear  one  shout  of  the  triumph, — that  there  might  flame, 
upon  your  eyes  one  blaze  of  the  splendor.  Oh,  when  I  speak 
of  that  good  land,  you  involuntarily  think  of  some  one  there 
that  you  loved — father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  or  dear  little 
child  garnered  already.  You  want  to  know  what  they  are 
doing  this  morning.  I  will  tell  you  what  they  are  doing. 
Singing.    You  want  to  know  what  they  wear.    I  will  tell  you 


4^4  TRUMTET  PEALS. 

what  they  wear.  Coronets  of  triumph.  You  wonder  why  oft 
they  look  to  the  gate  of  the  temple,  and  watch  and  wait.  I 
will  tell  you  why  they  watch  and  wait  and  look  to  the  gate  of 
the  temple.  For  your  coming.  I  shout  upward  the  news, 
for  I  am  sure  some  of  you  will  repent  and  start  for  heaven. 
Oh,  ye  bright  ones  before  the  throne,  your  earthly  friends  are 
coming.  Angels,  posing  mid-air,  cry  up  the  name.  Gate- 
keeper of  heaven,  send  forward  the  tidings.  Watchman  on 
the  battlements  celestial,  throw  the  signal. 

If  a  soldier  can  afford  to  shout  "Huzza!"  when  he 
goes  into  battle,  how  much  more  jubilantly  he  can  afford  to 
shout  "  Huzza !"  when  he  has  gained  the  victory !  If  re- 
ligion is  so  good  a  thing  to  have  here,  how  bright  a  thing  it 
will  be  in  heaven !  I  want  to  see  that  young  man  when  the 
glories  of  heaven  have  robed  and  crowned  him.  I  want  to 
hear  him  sing  when  all  huskiness  of  earthly  colds  is  gone, 
and  he  rises  up  with  the  great  doxology.  I  want  to  know 
what  standard  he  will  carry  when  marching  under  arches  of 
pearl  in  the  army  of  banners.  I  want  to  know  what  com- 
pany he  will  keep  in  a  land  where  they  arc  all  kings  and 
queens  forever  and  ever.  If  I  have  induced  one  of  you  to 
begin  a  better  life,  then  I  want  to  know  it.  I  may  not  in 
this  world  clasp  hands  with  you  in  friendship,  I  may  not 
hear  from  your  own  lips  the  story  of  temptation  and  sorrow, 
but  I  will  clasp  hands  with  you  when  then  the  sea  is  passed 
and  the  gates  are  entered. 

We  can,  in  this  world,  get  no  just  idea  of  the  splendors 
of  heaven.  John  tries  to  describe  them.  He  says  "  the 
twelve  gates  are  twelve  pearls,"  and  that  "  the  foundations  of 
the  wall  are  garnished  with  all  manner  of  precious  stones." 
As  we  stand  looking  through  the  telescope  of  St.  John,  we 
see  ablaze  of  amethyst  and  pearl  and  emerald  and  sardonyx 
and  chrysoprase  and  sapphire,  a  mountain  of  light,  a  cata- 
ract of  color,  a  sea  of  glass,  and  a  cit}'  like  the  sun. 

John  bids  us  look  again,  and  we  sec  thrones,  thrones  of 
the  prophets,  thrones  of  the  patriarchs,  thrones  of  the  angels, 
thrones  of  the  apostles,  thrones  of  the   martyrs,  throne  of 


HE  A  VEN.  465 

Jesus — throne  of  God.    And  we  turn  round  to  see  the  glory, 
and  it  is  thrones  !  thrones  !  thrones ! 

Skim  from  the  summer  waters  the  brightest  sparkles,  and 
you  will  get  no  idea  of  the  sheen  of  the  everlasting  sea. 
Pile  up  the  splendors  of  earthly  cities,  and  they  would  not 
make  a  stepping-stone  by  which  you  might  mount  to  the 
city  of  God.  Every  house  is  a  palace.  Every  step  is  a 
triumph.  Every  covering  of  the  head  a  coronation.  Every 
meal  is  a  banquet.  Every  stroke  from  the  tower  is  a  wed- 
ding-bell. Every  day  is  a  jubilee,  every  hour  a  rapture,  and 
every  moment  an  ecstasy. 

HEAVENLY   HOSTS. 

David  cried  out :  "  The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thou- 
sand." Elisha  saw  the  mountains  filled  with  celestial  cavalry. 
St.  John  said :  "  The  armies  which  are  in  heaven  followed 
Him  on  white  horses."  There  must  be  armed  escort  sent 
out,  to  bring  up  from  earth  to  heaven  those  who  were  more 
than  conquerors.  There  must  be  crusades  ever  being  fitted 
out  for  some  part  of  God's  dominion — battles,  bloodless, 
groanless,  painless ;  angels  of  evil  to  be  fought  down. 

John  bids  us  look,  and  we  see  the  great  procession  of  the 
redeemed  passing  ;  Jesus,  on  a  white  horse,  leads  the  march, 
and  all  the  armies  of  heaven  following  on  white  horses.  In- 
finite cavalcade  passing,  passing ;  empires  pressing  into  line, 
ages  following  ages.  Dispensation  tramping  on  after  dis- 
pensation. Glory  in  the  track  of  glory.  Europe,  Asia, 
Africa,  North  and  South  America,  pressing  into  lines. 
Islands  of  the  seas  shoulder  to  shoulder.  Generations  be- 
fore the  flood  following  generations  after  the  flood,  and  as 
Jesus  rises  at  the  head  of  that  great  host,  and  waves  His 
sword  in  signal  of  victory,  all  crowns  are  lifted,  and  all  en- 
signs slung  out,  and  all  chimes  rung,  and  all  hallelujahs 
chanted,  and  some  cry,  "  Glory  to  God  most  high  !"  and 
some,  "  Hosanna  to  the  son  of  David  !"  and  some,  "  Worthy 
is  the  Lamb  that  was  slain" — till  all  exclamations  of  endear- 
ment and  homage  in  the  vocabulary  of  heaven  are  exhausted, 


466  TI^L-MPLT  PEALS. 

and  there  comes  up  surge  after  surge  of  "  Amen  !  Amen ! 
and  Amen !" 

HEAVENLY  AWARDS. 

There  are  old  estates  in  the  celestial  world  that  have 
been  in  the  possession  of  its  inhabitants  for  thousands  of 
years.  Many  of  the  victors  from  earth  have  already  got 
their  palaces,  and  they  are  pointed  out  to  those  newly  ar- 
rived. Soon  after  our  getting  there  we  will  ask  to  be  shown 
the  Apostolic  residences,  and  ask  where  does  Paul  live,  and 
John,  and  ask  to  be  shown  the  patriarchal  residences,  and 
shall  say,  "Where  does  Abraham  live,  or  Jacob?"  and  shown 
the  martyr  residences,  and  say,  "  Where  does  John  Huss  live, 
and  Ridley?"  We  will  want  to  see  the  boulevards  where 
the  chariots  of  conquerors  roll.  I  will  want  to  see  the 
gardens  where  the  princes  walk.  We  will  want  to  see  Music 
Row,  where  Handel,  and  Haydn,  and  Mozart,  and  Charles 
Wesley,  and  Thomas  Hastings,  and  Bradbury  have  their 
homes;  out  of  their  windows,  ever  and  anon,  rolling  some 
sonnet  of  an  earthly  oratorio  or  hymn  transported  with  the 
composer.  We  will  want  to  see  Revival  Terrace,  where 
Whitefield,  and  Nettleton,  and  Payson,  and  Rowland  Hill, 
and  Charles  Finney,  and  other  giants  of  soul-reaping  are 
restino-  from  their  almost  supernatural  labors,  their  doors 
thronged  with  converts  just  arrived,  coming  to  report  them- 
selves. 

But  brilliant  as  the  sunset,  and  like  the  leaves  for  num- 
ber, are  the  celestial  homes  yet  to  be  awarded,  when  Christ 
to  you,  and  millions  of  others,  shall  divide  the  spoil.  What 
do  you  want  there?  You  shall  have  it.  An  orchard  ?  There 
it  is;  twelve  manner  of  fruit,  and  fruit  every  month.  Do 
you  want  river  scenery?  Take  your  choice  on  the  banks  of 
the  river,  in  longer,  wider,  deeper  roll  than  Danube,  or 
Amazon,  or  Mississippi  if  mingled  in  one,  and  emptying  into 
the  sea  of  glass,  mingled  with  fire.  Do  you  want  your 
kindred  back  again?  Go  out  and  meet  your  father  and 
mother  without  the  staff  or  the  stoop,  and  your  children  in 


HE  A  VEN.  467 

a  dance  of  immortal  glee.  Do  you  want  a  throne?  Select 
it  from  the  million  burnished  elevations.  Do  you  want  a 
crown  ?  Pick  it  out  of  that  mountain  of  diamonded  coronets. 
Do  you  want  your  old  church  friends  of  earth  around. you? 
Begin  to  hum  an  old  revival  tune  and  they  will  flock  from 
all  quarters,  to  revel  with  you  in  sacred  reminiscence.  All 
the  earth  for  those  who  are  here  on  earth  at  the  time  of  con- 
tinental and  planetary  distribution,  and  all  the  heavens  for 
those  who  are  there. 

That  heavenly  distribution  of  spoils  will  be  a  surprise  to 
many.  Here  enters  heaven  the  soul  of  a  man  who  took  up 
a  great  deal  of  room  in  the  church  on  earth,  but  there  for- 
sooth he  is  put  in  an  old  house  once  occupied  by  an  angel 
who  was  hurled  out  of  heaven  at  the  time  of  Satan's  rebellion. 

Right  after  him  comes  a  soul  that  makes  a  great  stir 
among  the  celestials,  and  the  angels  rush  to  the  scene,  each 
bringing  to  her  a  dazzling  coronet.  Who  is  she?  Over  what 
realm  on  earth  was  she  queen?  In  what  great  Diisseldorf 
festival  was  she  the  cantatrice  ?  Neither.  She  was  an  in- 
valid who  never  left  her  room  for  twenty  years  ;  but  she  was 
strong  in  prayer,  and  she  prayed  down  revival  after  revival, 
and  pentecost  after  pentecost,  upon  the  churches,  and  with 
her  pale  hands  she  knit  many  a  mitten  or  tippet  for  the  poor, 
and  with  her  contrivances  she  added  joy  to  many  a  holiday 
festival,  and  now,  with  those  thin  hands  so  strong  for  kind- 
ness, and  with  those  white  lips  so  strong  for  supplication,  she 
has  won  coronation  and  enthronement  and  jubilee.  And 
Christ  says  to  the  angels  who  have  brought  each  a  crown  for 
the  glorified  invalid,  "  No,  not  these ;  they  are  not  good 
enough.  But  in  the  jewelled  vase  at  the  right-hand  side  of 
my  throne  there  is  one  that  I  have  been  preparing  for  her 
many  a  year,  and  for  her  every  pang  I  have  set  an  amethyst, 
and  for  her  every  good  deed  I  have  set  a  pearl.  Fetch  it 
now  and  fulfil  the  promise  I  gave  her  long  ago  in  the  sick- 
room, '  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown.'  " 


-vl 


468  TRUMPET  FEALS. 


THE  HEALTH  OF  HEAVEN. 

Look  at  that  soul  standing  before  the  throne.  On  earth 
she  was  a  life-long  invalid.  See  her  step  now,  and  hear  her 
voice  now.  Catch,  if  you  can,  one  breath  of  that  celestial 
air.  Health  in  all  the  pulses — health  of  vision;  health  of 
spirits ;  immortal  health.  No  racking  cough,  no  sharp 
pleurisies,  no  consuming  fevers,  no  exhausting  pains,  no  hos- 
pitals of  wounded  men.  Health  swinging  in  the  air;  health 
flowing  in  all  the  streams ;  health  blooming  on  the  banks. 
No  headaches,  no  side-aches,  no  back-aches.  That  child  that 
died  in  the  agonies  of  croup,  hear  her  voice  now  ringing  in 
the  anthem  !  That  old  man  that  was  bowed  down  with  the 
infirmities  of  age,  sec  him  walk  now  with  the  step  of  an  im- 
mortal athlete — forever  young  again  !  That  night  when  the 
needle-woman  fainted  away  in  the  garret,  a  wave  of  the 
heavenly  air  resuscitated  her  forever — for  everlasting  years, 
to  have  neither  ache  nor  pain  nor  weakness  nor  fatigue. 

And  then  remember  that  all  physical  disadvantages  will 
be  exchanged  for  a  better  outfit.  Either  the  unstrung, 
worn-out,  blunted,  and  crippled  organs  will  be  so  recon- 
structed that  you  will  not  know  them,  or  an  entire  new  set 
of  eyes,  and  ears,  and  feet  will  be  given  you.  Just  what  it 
means  by  corruption  putting  on  incorruption  we  do  not 
know,  save  that  it  will  be  glory  ineffable ;  no  limping  in 
heaven,  no  straining  of  the  eyesight  to  see  things  a  little  way 
off ;  no  putting  of  the  hand  behind  the  car  to  double  the 
capacity  of  the  tympanum  ;  but  faculties  perfect,  all  the  keys 
of  the  instrument  attuned  for  the  sweep  of  the  fingers  of 
ecstasy. 

HEAVEN  RIGHTS  ALL  WRONGS. 

In  the  midst  of  the  city  of  Paris  stands  a  statue  of  the 
good  but  broken-hearted  Josephine.  I  never  imagined  that 
marble  could  be  smitten  into  such  tenderness.  It  seems  not 
lifeless.     If  the  spirit  of  Josephine  be  disentabernacled,  the 


HE  A  VEN.  469 

soul  of  the  Empress  has  taken  possession  of  this  figure.  I 
am  not  yet  satisfied  that  it  is  stone.  The  puff  of  the  dress 
on  the  arm  seems  to  need  but  the  pressure  of  the  finger  to 
indent  it.  The  figure  at  the  bottom  of  the  robe,  the  rufifle 
at  the  neck,  the  fur  hning  on  the  dress,  the  embroidery  of 
the  satin,  the  cluster  of  lily  and  and  leaf  and  rose  in  her  hand, 
the  poise  of  her  body  as  she  seems  to  come  sailing  out  of  the 
sky,  her  face  calm,  humble,  beautiful,  but  yet  sad — attest  the 
genius  of  the  sculptor  and  the  beauty  of  the  heroine  he  cele- 
brates. Looking  up  through  the  rifts  of  the  coronet  that 
encircles  her  brow,  I  could  see  the  sky  beyond,  the  great 
heavens  where  all  the  woman's  wrongs  shall  be  righted,  and 
the  story  of  endurance  and  resignation  shall  be  told  to  all 
the  ages.  The  rose  and  the  lily  in  the  hand  of  Josephine 
will  never  drop  their  petals.  Beautiful  symbol  of  the  fact 
that  heaven  rights  all  wrongs. 

NO   SORROW  THERE. 

This  is  a  planet  of  weeping  we  are  living  on.  We  enter 
upon  life  with  a  cry  and  leave  it  with  a  long  sigh.  But  there 
God  wipeth  away  all  tears  from  all  eyes.  Oh,  this  is  a 
world  of  sorrow !  But,  blessed  be  God !  there  will  be  no 
sorrow  in  Heaven.  Not  one  black  dress  of  mourning,  but 
plenty  of  white  robes  of  joy ;  hand-shaking  of  welcome,  but 
none  of  separation.  Why,  if  one  trouble  should  attempt  to 
enter  Heaven,  the  shining  police  of  the  city  would  put  it 
under  everlasting  arrest.  If  all  the  sorrows  of  life,  mailed 
and  sworded  under  Apollyon,  should  attempt  to  force  that 
gate,  one  company  from  the  tower  would  strike  them  back 
howling  to  the  pit.  Room  in  Heaven  for  all  the  raptures 
that  ever  knocked  at  the  gate,  but  no  room  for  the  smallest 
annoyance,  though  slight  as  a  summer  insect.  Doxology, 
but  no  dirge.  Banqueting,  but  no  ''  funeral-baked  meats." 
No  darkness  at  all.  No  grief  at  all.  Our  sorrows  over. 
Our  journey  ended.  It  will  be  as  when  kings  banquet. 
And  just  as  the  snow  of  winter  melts,  and  the  fields  will 
brighten  in  the   glorious  springtime,  so  it  will  be  with  all 


470  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

these  cold  sorrows  of  earth ;  they  shall  be  melted  away  at 
last  before  the  warm  sunshine  of  heaven.  When  the  clock 
of  Christian  suffering  has  run  down,  it  will  never  be  wound  up 
again.  Amid  the  vineyards  of  the  heavenly  Engedi,  that 
will  be  restoration  without  any  relapse,  that  will  be  "The 
Saints'  Everlasting  Rest!" 

THE   BIBLE   THE   ONLY   TRUE   GUIDE-BOOK. 

I  have  not  heard  yet  one  single  intelligent  account  of  the 
future  world  from  anybody  who  does  not  believe  in  the  Bible. 
They  throw  such  a  fog  about  the  subject  that  I  do  not  w^ant 
to  go  to  the  sceptic's  heaven,  to  the  transcendentalist's 
heaven,  to  the  worldly  philosopher's  heaven.  I  would  not 
exchange  the  poorest  room  in  your  house  for  the  finest 
heaven  that  Huxley  or  Stuart  Mill  or  Darwin  ever  dreamed 
of.  Their  heaven  has  no  Christ  in  it ;  and  a  heaven  without 
Christ,  though  you  could  sweep  the  whole  universe  into  it, 
would  be  no  heaven.  Oh,  they  tell  us  there  are  no  songs 
there  ;  there  are  no  coronations  m  heaven.  But  that  would 
not  satisfy  me.  Give  me  Christ  and  my  old  friends — that  is 
the  Heaven  I  want,  that  is  heaven  enough  for  me.  O  garden 
of  light,  whose  leaves  never  wither,  and  whose  fruits  never 
fail!  O  banquet  of  God,  whose  sweetness  never  palls  the 
taste  and  whose  guests  are  kings  forever  1  O  city  of  light, 
whose  walls  are  salvation,  and  whose  gates  are  praise !  O 
palace  of  rest,  where  God  is  the  monarch  and  everla.sting 
ages  the  length  of  His  reign  ! 

"  When  shall  these  eyes  thy  heaven-built  walls 
And  pearly  gates  behold  ? 
Thy  bulwarks  with  salvation  strong, 
And  streets  of  shining  gold." 

HISTORIC   WONDERS. 

We  shall  read  there  not  the  history  of  a  few  centuries  of 
our  planet  only,  but  the  history  of  the  eternities — whole 
millenniums  before  Xenophon  or  Herodotus  or  Moses  or 
Adam  was  born.     History  of  one  world,  ]iistor\-of  all  worlds! 


HE  A  VEN.  471 

HIGHER  MATHEMATICS. 

What  are  our  mathematical  friends  to  do  in  the  next  world? 
They  found  their  joy  and  their  delight  in  mathematics. 
There  was  more  poetry  for  them  in  Euclid  than  in  John 
Milton.  They  were  as  passionately  fond  of  mathematics  as 
Plato,  who  wrote  over  his  door,  "  Let  no  one  enter  here  who 
is  not  acquainted  with  geometry."  What  are  they  doing 
now?  They  are  busy  with  figures  yet.  No  place  in  all  the 
universe  like  heaven  for  figures.  Numbers  infinite,  distances 
infinite,  calculations  infinite.  The  didactic  Dr.  Dick  said  he 
really  thought  that  the  redeemed  in  heaven  spent  some  of 
their  time  with  the  higher  branches  of  mathematics. 

LAW   STUDIES. 

Studying  law  in  a  universe  where  everything  is  controlled 
by  law,  from  flight  of  humming-bird  to  flight  of  world — law, 
not  dry  and  hard  and  drudging,  but  righteous  and  magnifi- 
cent law,  before  which  man  and  cherub  and  seraph  and  arch- 
angel and  God  Himself  bow.  The  chain  of  law  long  enough 
to  wind  around  the  immensities  and  infinity  and  eternity  ! 
Chain  of  law !  What  a  place  to  study  law,  where  all  the 
links  of  the  chain  are  visible ! 

ASTRONOMY. 

Studying  astronomy  not  through  the  dull  lens  of  earthly 
observatory ;  with  one  stroke  of  wing  going  right  out  to 
Jupiter  and  Mars  and  Saturn  and  Orion  and  the  Pleiades — 
overtaking  and  passing  swiftest  comets  in  their  flight  !  Her- 
schel  died  a  Christian.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what 
Herschel  is  doing?  Isaac  Newton  died  a  Christian.  Have 
you  any  doubt  about  what  Isaac  Newton  is  doing?  Joseph 
Henry  died  a  Christian.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what 
Joseph  Henry  is  doing  ?  They  were  in  discussion,  all  these 
astronomers  of  earth,  about  what  the  aurora  borealis  was, 
and  none  of  them  could  guess.  They  know  now  ;  they  have 
been  to  see  for  themselves. 


472  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

THE   SCIENCES. 

Instead  of  a  few  thousand  volumes  on  a  few  shelves,  all 
the  volumes  of  the  universe  open— geologic,  ornithologic, 
conchologic,  botanic,  astronomic,  philosophic.  No  more 
need  of  Leyden  jars,  or  voltaic  piles,  or  electric  batteries, 
standing  face  to  face  with  the  facts  of  the  universe.  Scien- 
tists following  out  their  own  science,  following  out  and  fol- 
lowing out  forever.  Since  they  died  they  have  solved  ten 
thousand  questions  which  once  defied  the  earthly  labora- 
tory. They  stand  on  the  other  side  of  the  thin  wall  of  elec- 
tricity, the  wall  that  seems  to  divide  the  physical  from  the 
spiritual  world;  the  thin  wall  of  electricity,  so  thin  the  wall 
that  ever  and  anon  it  seems  to  be  almost  broken  through — 
broken  through  from  our  side  by  telephonic  and  telegraphic 
apparatus,  broken  through  from  the  other  side  by  strange 
influences  which  men  in  their  ignorance  call  spiritualistic 
manifestations.  All  that  matter  cleared  up.  Agassiz  stand- 
ing amid  his  student  explorers  down  in  Brazil,  coming  across 
some  great  novelty  in  the  rocks,  taking  off  his  hat  and  say- 
ing: "  Gentlemen,  let  us  pray ;  we  must  have  divine  illumi- 
nation ;  we  want  wisdom  from  the  Creator  to  study  these 
rocks  ;  He  made  them ;  let  us  pray  " — Agassiz  going  right 
on  with  his  studies  forever. 

EXPLORATIONS. 

With  lightning  locomotion  and  with  vision  microscopic 
and  telescopic  at  the  same  time.  A  continent  at  a  glance. 
A  world  in  a  second.  A  planetary  system  in  a  day.  Chris- 
tian John  Franklin  no  more  in  disabled  Erebus  pushing  to- 
ward the  North  Pole  ;  Christian  De  Long  no  more  trying  to 
free  blockaded  Jcannctte  from  the  ice  ;  Christian  Livingstone 
no  more  amid  African  malarias  trying  to  make  revelation  of 
a  dark  continent  ;  but  all  of  them  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
taking  in  that  which  was  unapproachable.  Mont  Blanc 
scaled  without  alpenstock.  The  coral  depths  of  the  ocean 
explored  without  a  diving-bell.  The  mountains  opened 
without  Sir  Humphrey  Davy's  safety  lamp. 


HE  A  VEN.  473 


THEOLOGY. 


What  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  who  found  their 
chief  joy  in  studying  God,  doing  now  ?  Studying  God  yet ! 
No  need  of  revelation  now,  for  unblanched  they  are  face  to 
face.  Now  they  can  handle  the  omnipotent  thunderbolts, 
just  as  a  child  handles  the  sword  of  a  father  come  back  from 
victorious  battle.     They  have  no  sin,  nor  fear,  consequently. 

Studying  Christ,  not  through  a  revelation,  save  the  revel- 
ation of  the  scars — that  deep  lettering  which  brings  it  all  up 
quick  enough.  Studying  the  Christ  of  the  Bethlehem  cara- 
vansary, the  Christ  of  the  awful  massacre  with  its  hemor- 
rhage of  head  and  hand,  and  foot  and  side — the  Christ  of 
the  shattered  mausoleum — Christ  the  sacrifice,  the  star,  the 
sun,  the  man,  the  God. 

SOCIETY. 

What  a  place  to  visit  in,  where  your  next-door  neighbors 
are  kings  and  queens.  You  yourselves  kingly  and  queenly. 
If  they  want  to  know  more  particularly  about  the  first  Par- 
adise, they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Adam.  If  they 
want  to  know  how  the  sun  and  the  moon  halted,  they  have 
only  to  go  over  and  ask  Joshua.  If  they  want  to  know  how 
the  storm  pelted  Sodom  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask 
Lot.  If  they  want  to  know  more  about  the  arrogance  of 
Haman,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Mordecai.  If 
they  want  to  know  how  the  Red  Sea  boiled  when  it  was 
cloven,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Moses.  If  they 
want  to  know  the  particulars  about  the  Bethlehem  advent, 
they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  the  serenading  angels 
who  stood  that  Christmas  night  in  the  balconies  of  crystal. 
If  they  want  to  know  more  of  the  particulars  of  the  cruci- 
fixion, they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  those  who  were 
personal  spectators  while  the  mountains  crouched  and  the 
Heavens  got  black  in  the  face  at  the  spectacle. 

When  I  get  to  heaven  I  will  come  to  all  the  people  to 
whom  I  have  administered  in  the  Gospel,  and  to  the  mil- 


474  TRUMPET  TEALS. 

lions  of  souls  to  whom,  through  the  kindness  of  the  printing- 
press,  I  am  permitted  to  preach  every  week  in  this  land  and 
other  lands — letters  coming  from  New  Zealand  and  Aus- 
tralia and  the  uttermost  parts  of  earth,  as  well  as  from  near 
nations,  telling  me  of  the  souls  I  have  helped — /  will  visit 
t  hem  all.     I  give  than  fair  notice. 


OCCUPATION. 

Plenty  of  occupation  in  heaven  !  I  suppose  Broadway, 
New  York,  in  the  busiest  season  of  the  year,  at  noonday, 
is  not  so  busy  as  heaven  is  all  the  time.  Grand  projects  of 
mercy  for  other  worlds !  Victories  to  be  celebrated  I  The 
downfall  of  despotisms  on  earth  to  be  announced !  Great 
songs  to  be  learned  and  sung  !  Great  expeditions  on  which 
God  shall  send  forth  His  children!  Plenty  to  do,  but  no  fa- 
tigue! 

NEW  JERUSALEM   CHURCH. 

After  a  while  our  names  will  be  taken  ofT  the  church  books, 
or  there  will  be  a  mark  in  the  margin,  to  indicate  that  we 
have  gone  up  to  a  better  church  and  to  a  higher  commu- 
nion— a  perfect  church,  where  all  our  preferences  will  be 
gratified.  Great  cathedral  of  eternity,  with  arches  of  ame- 
thysts, and  pillars  of  sapphire,  and  floors  of  emerald,  and  win- 
dows aglow  with  the  sunrise  of  heaven  !  What  stupendous 
towers,  with  chimes  angcl-hoisted  and  angel-rung!  What 
myriads  of  worshippers,  white-robed  and  coroneted  !  What 
an  officiator  at  the  altar,  even  "  the  great  High  Priest  of  our 
profession"!  What  walls,  hung  with  the  captured  shields 
and  flags,  by  the  church  militant,  passed  up  to  be  church  tri- 
umphant ! 

Hark !  the  bell  of  the  cathedral  rings — the  cathedral  bell 
of  heaven.  There  is  going  to  be  a  great  meeting  in  the  tem- 
ple. Worshippers  all  coming  through  the  aisles.  Make 
room  for  the  conqueror.  Christ  standing  in  the  temple. 
All  heaven  gathering  around    llim.     Those  who  loved  the 


HE  A  VEN.  47S 

beautiful,  come  to  look  at  the  Rose  of  Sharon.  Those  who 
loved  music,  come  to  listen  to  His  voice.  Those  who  were 
mathematicians,  come  to  count  the  years  of  His  reign. 
Those  who  were  explorers,  come  to  discover  the  breadth  of 
His  love.  Those  who  had  the  military  spirit  on  earth  sanc- 
tified, and  the  military  spirit  in  heaven,  come  to  look  at  the 
Captain  of  their  salvation.  The  astronomers  come  to  look 
at  the  Morning  Star.  The  men  of  the  law  come  to  look  at 
Him  who  is  the  Judge  of  quick  and  dead.  The  men  who 
healed  the  sick,  come  to  look  at  Him  who  was  wounded  for 
our  transgressions. 

All  different,  and  different  forever  in  many  respects,  yet 
all  alike  in  admiration  for  Christ,  in  worship  for  Christ,  and 
all  alike  in  joining  in  the  doxology  :  "Unto  Him  who  washed 
us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood,  and  made  us  kings  and 
priests  unto  God,  to  Him  be  glory  in  the  church  throughout 
all  ages,  world  without  end  !  " 

MUSIC. 

The  Bible  says  so  much  about  the  music  of  heaven  that  it 
cannot  all  be  figurative.  The  Bible  over  and  over  again 
speaks  of  the  songs  of  heaven.  If  heaven  had  no  songs  of 
its  ovv^n,  a  vast  number  of  those  of  earth  would  have  been 
taken  up  by  the  earthly  emigrants.  Surely  the  Christian  at 
death  does  not  lose  his  memory.  Then  there  must  be  mill- 
ions of  souls  in  heaven  who  know  "  Coronation,"  and  "An- 
tioch,"  and  "  Mount  Pisgah,"  and  "Old  Hundred,"  and  they 
can  easily  learn  the  "  New  Song."  And  the  leader  of  the 
eternal  orchestra  need  only  once  tap  his  baton,  and  all 
heaven  will  be  ready  for  the  hallelujah. 

Cannot  the  soul  sing  ?  How  often  we  compliment  some 
exquisite  singer  by  saying:  "  There  was  so  much  soul  in  her 
music."  In  heaven  it  will  be  all  soul,  until  the  body  after  a 
while  comes  up  in  the  resurrection,  and  then  there  will  be 
an  additional  heaven.  Cannot  the  soul  hear?  If  it  can 
hear,  then  it  can  hear  music. 

Grand  old  Haydn,  sick  and  worn  out,  was  carried  for  the 
last  time  into  the  music  hall,  and  there  he  heard  his  own 


4/6  TRUMPET  PEALS. 

oratorio  of  the  "  Creation."  History  says  that  as  the  or- 
chestra came  to  that  famous  passage,  "  Let  there  be  Hght !" 
the  whole  audic'^jc  rose  and  cheered,  and  Haydn  waved  his 
hand  toward  heaven,  and  said  :  "  It  comes  from  there." 
Ovcrwhehncd  with  his  own  music,  he  was  carried  out  in  his 
chair,  and  as  he  came  to  the  door  he  spread  his  hand  toward 
the  orchestra  as  in  benediction.  Haydn  was  right  when  he 
waved  his  hand  toward  heaven  and  said  :  "  It  comes  from 
there."  Music  was  born  in  heaven,  and  it  will  ever  have  its 
highest  throne  in  heaven  ;  and  I  want  you  to  understand 
that  our  departed  friends  who  were  passionately  fond  of 
music  here,  are  now  at  the  headquarters  of  harmony.  I 
think  that  the  grand  old  tunes  that  died  when  your  grand- 
fathers died,  have  gone  with  them  to  heaven. 

SWEET  SABBATH  SONG. 

When  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord  shall  come  to  ZIon,  then 
let  all  the  harpers  take  down  their  harps,  and  all  the  trum- 
peters take  down  their  trumpets,  and  all  across  heaven  let 
there  be  chorus  of  morning  stars,  chorus  of  white-robed 
victors,  chorus  of  martyrs  from  under  the  throne,  chorus  of 
ages,  chorus  of  worlds,  and  let  there  be  but  one  song  sung, 
and  but  one  name  spoken,  and  but  one  throne  honored — 
that  of  Jesus  only. 

What  doxologics  of  all  nations  !  Cornet  to  cornet,  cym- 
bal to  cymbal,  harp  to  harp,  organ  to  organ !  Pull  out  the 
tremulant  stop  to  recall  the  suffering  past !  Pull  out  the 
trumpet  stop  to  celebrate  the  victory ! 

O  song  louder  than  the  surf-beat  of  many  waters,  yet  soft 
as  the  whisper  of  cherubim  ! 

[Then  shall  be  heard  the  great  anthem  of  the  ages,  rolling  out 
and  rolling  on,  in  tones  "loud,  as  of  numbers  numberless,  yet  sweet, 
as  of  blest  spirits  uttering  joy  " — the  oratorio  of  the  skies,  in  full  or- 
chestra, swelling  the  praises  of  God  and  the  Lamb,  for  ever  and  ever. 
Amen. — Eunuii.] 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

Dr.  Talmage  in  Palestine. 

The  following  letter  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  T.  DeWitt  Tal- 
mage was  written  from  the  Holy  Land  to  Dr.  H.  A.  Tucker, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Brooklyn  Taber- 
nacle : 

Hotel  Victoria,  Damas  (Syrie), 
Damascus,  Dec.  21,  1S89. 

To  the  Officers  ajid  Congregation  of  the  Brookly7i  Tabernacle : 

Dear  Friends  :  I  greet  you  from  this  distant  land.  I  have  ac- 
complished what  I  came  for.  Our  journey  in  Italy,  Greece,  Egypt, 
and  Palestine  is  completed.  We  have  been  blessed  and  prospered  at 
every  step.  I  will  bring  home  with  me  for  our  new  church  a  stone 
from  the  Jordan  to  be  sculptured  into  a  baptismal  font,  and  for  the 
corner-stone  of  our  church  a  stone  from  Mount  Calvary  (I  rolled  it 
from  the  Hill  Golgotha,  or  Place  of  a  Skull,  with  my  own  hand) ;  and 
a  stone  from  Mount  Sinai.  These  two  will  preach  the  Law  and  the 
Gospel  from  our  church  wall  long  after  our  lips  have  ceased  to  preach. 
The  stone  from  Mount  Calvary  will  of  course  be  put  on  top  of  the 
one  from  Mount  Sinai.  I  bring  also  from  Mars  Hill,  Athens,  where 
Paul  preached,  a  stone  for  a  pulpit  table. 

On  the  way  to  the  Jordan  we  met  an  American  who  expressed  the 
wish  to  be  baptized  by  immersion  in  that  sacred  river.  So,  with  a 
number  of  people  from  different  countries  standing  on  the  bank  and 
singing  the  old  hymn,  "  On  Jordan's  stormy  banks  I  stand,"  and  after 
I  had  read  of  the  baptism  of  old  in  the  river,  the  candidate  and  my- 
self waded  into  the  swift  stream,  and  the  ordinance  was  more  solemn 
and  suggestive  than  I  can  describe. 

From  Damascus  we  start  homeward.  We  will  (D.  V.)  sail  from 
Liverpool  January  22,  Wednesday,  and  arrive  home  the  following 

477 


4/8  TRUMl'ET  PEALS. 

Wednesday,  and    I   expect   to  preach  to  you   the  first   Sabbath   in 
February.* 

Asking  for  a  continuance  of  your  prayers  in  our  behalf,  I  cm  your 

pastor, 

T.  DeWitt  Talmage. 

On  his  way  from  Damascus,  Dr.  Talmage  was  honored 
with  receptions  by  the  American  Ministers  in  Constantinople 
and  Paris. 

*  Dr.  Talmage  took  the  S.  S.  Aurania  from  Liverpool  on  Saturday,  Janu- 
ary 25,  and  arrived  in  New  York  on  Monday,  February  3.  A  public  reception 
was  given  to  him  on  Thursday,  February  6,  at  the  Armory  of  the  I3lh  regi- 
ment, Brooklyn. 


ALPHABETICAL  INDEX. 


A 

A  God  I  a  God! 2 

Accepted  time,  the , .  433 

Accusing  blood 405 

Achievements  of  orthodoxy. ...  151 

Affectionate  appeal 228 

Agricultural  falsehoods 179 

Alexander's  light 164 

Alley  scene 255 

All  of  grace 407 

Altruism,  noble 296 

Amos,  the  peasant  astronomer..  3 

Amuse-Ments 239 

tests  of 248 

versus  home 251 

Anointing  oil 51 

Another  conversion  cure  for  in- 

temperence 304 

Another  victim 224 

Apologies  for  parental  neglect..  325 

Appeal,  affectionate 228 

Arch  fiend,  rum 262 

Are  you  astray?     Beware! 293 

Ark,  Noah's,  its  size 47 

landing  on  Ararat 49 

Astronomer,  the  peasant,  Amos.  3 

Astronomy,  Pleiades  and  Orion.  3 

in  heaven 471 

Atheism  rebutted 55 

Avon,  beats  the  bard  of. .......  277 

Awards,  heavenly 466 

B 

Babylon,  warning  voice  from.. .  266 

Balm  for  the  weary 112 

Bargain,  bad ,,......  402 

Beats  the  bard  of  Avon 277 

Beginning,  an  unpropitious. . .  158 

Behavior  makes  the  abode 335 

Betting 202 

Bible,  a  cruel  book 58 

a  mass  of  contradictions. . .  58 

a  whole,  from  lid  to  lid 145 

book  of  books 115 


r'AGE 

Bible,    evidence, — transforming 

character 103 

evolution 19 

indecencies 63 

good  people  satisfied 151 

great  poem 115 

imposition  on  credulity. .  . .     60 

infidel  objections 45 

many  noted  endorsers.  . .    103-9 

miracles 52-5 

no  additions  made 150 

no  mending  of  the 136 

only  true  Guide-book 470 

polygamy 65 

praised  by  sceptics 106-7 

sublimest  philosophy   ij6 

sure  foundation 152 

unscieniific 45 

when  we  can  do  without  it..   149 
why  expurgation  is  wrong..   138 

woman's  shame 68 

world's  book 117 

Bird's  wing,  evolution  of 23 

Blasphemous  programme 38 

Blasphemy  abroad 173 

a  punishable  crime 88 

Blood,  the  accusing 405 

Books,  apologetic  for  crime .   323 

corrupting 322 

Ephesian  magic 328 

infidel 325 

multiplication  of 3<'j6 

Brand  on  the  barrel . .   296 

Brewster.  David,  and  the  Bible.   ifj6 

Broken  hearts 301 

Business  closed  by  death 401 

religion 236 

C 

Card-playing  parlor 220 

Career  of  the  gambler 227 

Carousal,  the 263 

Cause,  the  great  first i 

Cave  of  AduUam 443 

479 


48o 


A  LPJIA  BE  TIC  A  L   INDEX. 


lAGE 

Caviling  rebuked 131 

Certiiudes 153 

Chain  of  events 7 

Chance,  lost 429 

second 164 

Chances,  sufficient  in  this  life...  if)2 

Change,  a  great I09 

Chakacter-Bl'ilding 449 

Chase,  return  from  the 397 

Cheat,  the  world  a  great 393 

Choice  of  road 225 

Christian  institutions,  no  substi- 
tute for S3 

Christians,  appeal  to 124 

Christianity,  downfall  of 86 

not  dead 94 

City,  landed  in  the 37S 

snares 332 

Clean  road..    457 

Collapse,  inflation  and 233 

Commercial  Pharisees 342 

Compromise,    no 140 

Coney  Island   tragedy 276 

Consecrated  home 347 

Contamination,  beware  of 245 

Contradictions,  a  mass  of 58 

Contrast      made     by     drinking 

habit 299 

Contrast  made  by  dissipation..  .  381 

Contrasted  death-beds 154 

Conversion  a  cure  for  drinking 

habit 304 

Corrupt  Litilrature 306 

Cost  of  recovery 405 

Counter,  both  sides  of  the iSi 

Counter-charges  against   Inger- 

sollism 71 

Country   home 377 

young  men  from  the. .  334 

Creation,  false  theory  of '    14 

God  ill I 

of  light 42 

of  woman 36 

Credulity,  imposition  on 60 

Creed  of  Evolutionists 11 

Crime,  blasphemy  a  punishable.  88 

Crisis  in  disease 42S 

Criticism,  THK  HiGiiicR 136 

Crusade,  a  grand 273 

needed 255 

Cure  for  drinking  habit,  conver- 
sion    304 

Cyrus  and  Napoleon  III 402 

D 

Dancing  in  ancient  limes 241 

universally  popular.  .  .    241 
David  Brewster  and  the  Bible. .    106 


PAGE 

David  Livingstone  on  his  knees.  106 

Death -beds  contrasted 154 

Death  and  Xerxes 389 

closes  business 401 

happy 34S 

Debt 190 

Deeds  of  darkness 214 

Dki-k.nces  oe  Young  Men 366 

Deity,  foot-prints  of 37 

Deluded  lawyers 105 

Deluge,  the ,  46 

Demoralization  of  society 90 

Demoralizing  theory 161 

Despairing  octogenarian 425 

Destiny  above  origin 30 

Devil's  harvest-time 35 1 

Dice-box,  an  estate  in  a 222 

Disease,  crisis  in 428 

Discovery,  important 280 

DlSIIONESrV,FKAUD,AND  LYING.  184 

Distinguished  list 105-6 

Diversity  of  temptations 341 

Dollar,  hunting  the. 396 

Dore's,  better  illustrations  than.  141 

Downfall  of  Christianity 86 

Down   stream,  easy  to  go 355 

Duke  of  Wellington's  honesty. .  isS 

Drama  of  life 246 

Dram-shop,  the 275 

Dream  about  a  second  chance. .  165 

Drudgery  necessary 369 

Drug-stores 26S 

Drunkard's  plunge 300 

will" 26S 

Drunkenness,  the  evil  of 274 

E 

Easy  to  go  down  stream 355 

Egypt,  an  emblem  from 2S4 

the  lews  in    51 

Enemy  to  the  home,  gambling..  223 

Kphcsian  magic-books 329 

Estate  in  a  dice-box 222 

Eternal  punishment 165 

Eternity,  time  and 388 

for  time 390 

Events,  chain  of 7 

Every  man  has  a  part 346 

Evidences  of  Christianity 9'-9 

Evil  habits,  hard  to  give  up. . . .  354 

slain   by    352 

Evolution,  anti-God,  etc 11 

a  guess 24 

Bible 19 

brutalizing 29 

downward 19 

for  a  wreck 33 

is  inlideliiy 12 


ALPHABETICAL  INDEX. 


481 


PAGE 

Evolution  no  novelty 31 

of  a  bird's  wing 23 

of  a  rattle-snake 23 

sons  of  a  gorilla  or  of 

God 21 

theory  of,  inconsistent    14 

Evolutionists,  modern 20 

the  creed  of 11 

Examine  your  libraries 32S 

Exit,  a  happy 34S 

Explorations  in  heaven 472 

Explosions  of  social  life 257 

Expurgation,  why  wrong 138 

of  the  heart 139 

F 

Falsehoods, — see  lies 178 

Famous  soul-vendors 403 

Fascinations  of  fraud 187 

of  killing 394 

of  stock-gambling..  234 

Fast  in  the  stocks 235 

Fate  of  literary  corrupters 330 

Fatal  pleasure-parties 351 

Fickle  world 392 

Firmament,   the 43 

Fog,  theological 143 

Foot-prints  of  Deity 37 

Foul  play  in  gambling 222 

Foundation,  the  sure   152 

Four  plain  questions 357 

Franklin's  advice  to  Paine   ....  105 

Fraud  and  Dishonesty 184 

Fascination  of 187 

Free-loveism 257 

Frog-plague,  a  worse  than 307 

Frogs  to  be  slain,  how 312 

Funds,  trust 1S9 

G 

Gambler's  Career 227 

Gamblers,  shall  they  triumph...  212 
Gambling,   a  Sennacheribean 

Evil 213 

Gambling  a  merciless  evil 214 

an  enemy  to  the  home.. ...  223 

another  victim  of 224 

ecclesiascical 220 

fascinations  of  the  game..  216 

foul   play 222 

killing  to  industry 211 

character 211 

parlor  card-playing 220 

perilous  to  business 221 

rapid  transit  to  perdition. . .  226 

terrible  tale 221 

trap  and  trickery 221 

what  is 209 


PAGE 

Gambling,  Stock 229 

a  laughing  stock. .. .  237 

Wall  Street 229 

Gate,  Well  at  the 443 

Gettysburg,  a  spectator  at 428 

Gibbon  and  suicide    77 

Gift  stores 201 

Gladstone  and  others 106 

Glories  of  heaven 463 

Glorious  news ....  363 

God  bless  the  White  Cross 259 

foot-prints  of.. 37 

in  creation 1-21 

of  light 6 

of  the  world,  making  a  . . . .  393 

the  immutable 6 

the  money   396 

trusting 8 

victory  for 97 

Goods,  stolen,  returned 1S7 

Gorilla,  sons  of,  or  of  God 21 

Gospel  Trumpet  Peals 387 

ship 163 

"   419 

weapon 411 

Grace,  all  of 407 

Grave,  beyond  the 112 

Graven  images 56 

Gravitation,   moral 354 

Great  Fh^st  Cause i 

Grind-stones,  the  stolen 123 

Guidebook,  Bible  only  true....  470 

H 
Habits,  evil,  hard  to  give  up...   354 

industrious 367 

slain  by  evil 352 

Harvest-time,  the  devil's 351 

Heart,  expurgation  of  the   139 

Hearts,  broken 301 

Heaven 455 

Bible  a  guide-book  to 470 

glories  of 463 

health  of 468 

higher  mathematics  of 471 

historic  wonders  of 470 

home  in,  longed  for...  .... .   460 

no  sorrow  there 469 

reunion  in 462 

rights  all  wrongs 46S 

visions  of 458 

way  to — see  road 455 

worship  in. .    . .    475-6 

Heavenly  rewards 466 

hosts 465 

music 475-6 

studies 471-2 

Hell,  how  far  to 166 


482 


ALPHA  BE  TIC  A  L   IiVDEX. 


PAGE 

Hif.iiKR  Criticism 136 

Highway.  King's 45(1 

Hissed  off  the  stage 3^6 

Holiday  tcmiJiatitMis 295 

Home,  a  consecrated 347 

a  good 3(j6 

gainbliii.if  an  enemy  to. .    223 

the  country 377 

Honesty  of  VVelliiigion  atid  Liv- 
ingstone     iSS 

Hope,  the  worst  may 362 

your  only 303 

How  swift  the  river 339 

Hunt,  where  to 411 

Hunting,  skill  in 413 

the  dollar 396 

I     . 

I  came  in  on  a  plank 420 

Ideal,  a  noble 371 

Illustration,  belter  than  Dore's.  141 

Images,  graven 56 

Imagination,  books  that  corrupt 

the 322 

Immutable,  the 6 

Imposition  on  credulity 60 

iMruuiTY,  Soci.\L 254 

Incredulity  rebutted 55 

Indolent  life 337 

Industrious  habits 367 

Infatuation,  reckless. 300 

Infernal  spell 222 

Infidel  books  325 

Infidel's  premonition 162 

Infidels,     Voltaire,     Paine,    and 

Hume 76-7 

Infidelity  and  suicide 73 

evolution    is 12 

impeachment  of 84 

the  meanness  of 79 

Inflation  and  collapse 233 

Ingersoll  defeated 100 

tesliinony  of 39 

charges  of 41 

is  this  book    true 41 

Ingersollian  Inkidemtv  Co.n- 

FUTEI) 35 

Ingersoll  ism,       coimter-charges 
against 71 

In  lEMI'I'.RANCE 2()I 

cured  by  conversion 304 

drunkard's  plunge 300 

will 26S 

evil  of 274 

loss  of  good  name  by 2S6 

home  by 291 

physical  health  by 290 

self-respect  by 2S7 


PAGE 

Intemperance,  loss  of  the  soul  by  292 

usefulness  by 290 

danger  of  young  writers  for 

the  press 297 

Intemperance    loves    a   shining 

mark 297 

Intemperance  to  the  rescue....  272 

lnvitati<}n,  warning  and 387 

Irreligion  a  slaughterer 359 

Is  it  well  with  thy  soul 398 

J 

Jehoiakim,  the  modern 72 

Jews  in  Egypt 51 

Jonah  and  the  whale 54 

Jumping  overboard 16 

Jury  disagree 26 

K 

Killing,  fascination  of 394 

King's  highway 456 

L 

Landed  in  the  city 37S 

Law  studies  in  heaven 471 

Lazaretto  world 160 

Leaning  lower  of  Pisa   452 

Legion,  their  name  is ....    196 

Libertinism 255 

Libraries,  examine  your 32S 

Lies,  agricultural 179 

commercial iSo 

mechanical 181 

shopping 183 

social 182 

Light,  Ale.xander's 164 

creation  of 42 

the  God  of 6 

Link, the  missing 22 

Literature,  Corrupt 306 

fictitious 318 

healthful 314 

salacious 309 

Livingstone,  David, on  his  knees.    106 

Logic  of  testimony ....    126 

Loss  of  good  name  by  drink. . . .    2S6 

home  by  drink 291 

physical  health  by  drink.  2c)<i 
self-respect  by  drink. .. .   2S7 

the  soul  by  drink   292 

usefulness  by  driidc 290 

Longing  for  home  in  heaven.. .  .   4()0 

Lost  chance 429 

Lost  literary  treasures 147 

Lotteries 1 98 

Loves  a  shining  mark,  drink.   .  .    297 

L  V  1  N  <;.         DISIIDM'.STV,         A  N  D 

FRAUD 173 


ALPHABETICAL   INDEX. 


483 


PAGE 

M 

Making  a  god  of  ihe  world 393 

mouths  at  God 37 

Mania,  the  tulip 204 

Mathematics,  the  higher 471 

Meanness  of  infidelity 79 

Mercy  for  all 361 

Milton,  John,  a  Christian 105 

Missing  link 22 

Mississippi  scheme 204 

Modern  evolutionists 20 

Money  all  gone 380 

Money  god 396 

Monopolies 186 

Montaigne  and  suicide 77 

Moon,  sun  and,  stood  still 52 

Moral  gravitation 354 

Morning  hunt 395 

Morus  multicaulis 206 

Multiplication  of  books 306 

Music  in  heaven   475-6 

N 

Naaman,  the  Story  of 435 

New  Jerusalem  Church 474 

News,  glorious 363 

Noble  altruism 296 

ideal 37i 

No  compromise 140 

half  way 336 

stopping.. 279 

Now  or  never 430 

O 

Occupation  in  heaven 474 

Octogenarian,  a  despairing 425 

Oil  fever   206 

Old  paths,  stand  by  the 155 

Opportunity,  time  our  only  ....  3S9 

Origin,  destiny  above. . .     30 

of  worlds 14 

Orion,  Pleiades  and 3 

Orthodoxy,  achievements  of. .. .  151 

Other  victims  of  intemperance..  283 

Overboard,  jumping 16 

Owen,  Robert  Dale,  and  suicide  76 

P 

Pain  does  not  cure 158 

Parlor  card-playing 220 

Parting  at  a  theatre 3S6 

Patrick  Henry  and  others 106 

Pawnbroker's  spoils 295 

Peals,  Gospel  Triimtet 3S7 

Three  TKtiMi'F.T 422 

Peasant  astronomer,  Amos,  the.        3 
Peroration,  a 302 


PAGE 

Pharisees,  commercial 342 

Pictorials,  pernicious 327 

Picture-gallery,  the  rogue's 74 

Pisa,  leaning  tower  of 452 

Plank,  I   came  in  on  a 420 

Pleasure-parties,  fatal 351 

Pleiades  and  Orion 3 

Plumb-line  religion 449 

Plunge  of  the  drunkard 300 

Polygamy 65 

Posthumous  Opportunitv 

Theory 157 

Postponement  useless 430 

Power,  saving.  ...    406 

Premonition,  an  infidel's 162 

Press,  young  writers  for  the...,  297 

Pressure,  under  the 195 

Principle,  religious. 374 

Profanity,  the  Plague  of  .. .   170 
instances  of   awful 

punishment 176 

unmanliness  of  ...    171 
what  is  the  cure  of    174 

Progress,  no  natural 18 

Property  sold,  the 400 

Punishment,  eternal 165 

Q 

Questions,  four  plain 357 

R 

Rapid  transit  to  perdition 226 

Rattle-snake  and  evolution....  23 

Reckless  infatuation 300 

Reckoning,  day  of 329 

Recovery,  the  cost  of 405 

Reformer,  time  no 159 

Religion  in  business 236 

Religious  principle 374 

Replevin,  a  suit  for 404 

Rescue  the  perishing 416 

Rescue,  to  the 272 

Respect  for  the  Sabbath 370 

Results,  good  and  bad 317 

Return  from  the  chase 397 

Reunion  in  heaven 462 

a   shipwrecked    father    and 

son 462 

River,  how  swift  the 339 

Road  to  heaven,  a  clean 457 

a  plain 457 

a  pleasant 45S 

a  safe 45S 

choice  of 225 

Rogue's  picture-gallery 74 

Rope,  a  very  stout 16S 

Rosettes  of  stars,  two 4 


484 


ALPHA  BE  TIC  A  L   IXDEX. 


PAGE 

Rousseau's  dream 114 

Rush,  Benjamin,  and  others 106 

S 

Sabbath,  respect  for 370 

Salacious  hterature 309 

Saving  power  of  the  Gospel. . . .  406 

Scales,  the  two 399 

Sciences 472 

Secret,  the  tremendous. 385 

Se.n.nacheribean   Evil,  Gam- 

blinc;  the 213 

Shakespeare,  beats 277 

Shakespeare's  will 350 

Shining  mark,  rum  loves  a 297 

Shipwrecked  father  and  son ....  462 

Sin  will  out 345 

Skill  in  hunting 413 

Slain  by  evil  habits 352 

Snares,  betting 202 

city 332 

SociAi,  Impurity 254 

life,  e.xplosions  of 257 

Society,  demoralization  of 90 

in  heaven 473 

Solemn  thoughts 3S9 

Sons  of  a  gorilla  or  of  God 21 

Soon  to  leave  all 391 

Sorrow,  no 4^9 

Soul  and  the  world 399 

-hunting 4^9 

is  it  well  with  thy 39S 

-saving 4^5 

suit  for  replevin 404 

vendors 403 

South-sea  bubble 205 

Species  remain  distinct 27 

Spectator  at  Gettysburg 42S 

Spell,  an  infernal 222 

Spoils,  the  pawnbroker's 295 

Stars,  two  rosettes  of 4 

what  they  teach 5 

who  made  the 2 

Stock-Gambling 229 

a  laughing-stock  237 

Stage,  hissed  off  the 34<^> 

Stand  by  the  old  paths 155 

Strange  genealogy 25 

Stolen  goods  returned 1S7 

Stop  in  time 302 

Student  victim  of  intemperance.   298 

Studies  of  law  in  heaven 471 

SnUirient  chances  in  life if)2 

Suicide,  infidel  advocates  of.  ...      77 

infidelity  and 73 

Sweet  Sabbath  song 476 

Swindling 193 

other  schemes 203 


T  PACE 

Take  sides 269 

Temptations,  diversity  of 341 

holiday 295 

of  writers  for  the 

press 297 

winter 350 

Tenets,  one  of  the 17 

Ten-pins 226 

Termini  ok  Two  City  Roads.  377 

Terrible  tale 221 

Tests  of  amusements 248 

Testimony,  logic  of 126 

the  inward 24 

Theatre  and  stage  costumes. . . .   244 

parting  at  a 386 

Thiers  and  others 106 

Theological  fog 143 

Theology  in  heaven 473 

Theory   of   Posthumous    Op- 
portunity   157 

Theory,  demoralizing i6l 

of  evolution  inconsistent  . ..     14 

Thought,  solemn 3S9 

Three  Trumpet  Pe:als 422 

Time  and  eternity 388 

accepted 433 

eternity  bartered  for 390 

no  reformer 159 

our  only  opportunity  ....   3S9 

Tragedy  in  five  acts 277 

Trap  and  trickery 221 

Traps  for  Young  Men 331 

Treasures,  lost  literary 147 

Tremendous  secret 385 

Trumpet  Peals,  Gospel 38 7 

Trust  funds 189 

Trusting  God 8 

Try,  try  again 353 

Tulip  mania 204 

Two  rosettes  of  stars 4 

scales,  the 399 

U 

Under  the  pressure 195 

Unpropitious  beginning 158 

surroundings  ....  159 

•  V 

Vendors  of  the  soul,  famous 403 

Victim,  a  brilliant 243 

another 224 

student 298 

Victims,  other 2S3 

Victory  for  (iod 97 

Vision  of  heaven 45S 

W 

Wall  Sirei-t  Doings 232 

Warning  and  invitation 387 


A  LP  HA  BE  TIC  A  L   INDEX. 


485 


Warning  to  young  men 207 

voice  from  Babylon  .  .  266 

Way  to  heaven 455 

built    before   the 

Appian  Way 455 

Way  to  heaven  the  King's  High- 
way   456 

Weary,  a  balm  for  the 112 

Well  at  the  Gate 443 

of  Bethlehem 443 

of  salvation 445 

Wellington,  the  Duke  of 188 

Whale,  Jonah  and  the 54 

What  books  and  newsapers  shall 

we  read  ? 318 

What  has  been  accomplished.  . .  103 

Where  to  hunt 411 

White  Cross,  God  bless  the  ....  259 

Whole  Bible  from  lid  to  lid 145 

Wine-drinking  convivialities  .  . .  294 

Winter  temptations 350 

Woman's  creation 36 

Womanhood,  degradation  of. .  ..  89 


PAGE 

Wonders,  historic 470 

Work,  greatest  of  the  age 104 

World  a  cheat 393 

a  fickle 392 

a  lazaretto 160 

and  soul 399 

-hunting 394-5 

Worlds,  the  origin  of 14 

Worship  in  heaven 475-^ 

Worst  may  hope 362 

Wreck,  a 27S 

Wrongs,  Heaven   rights  all 468 

Y 

Young  men,  appeal  to 12S 

defences  of 366 

from  the  country..    334 

of  America 302 

temptations  of  ...  .    297 

traps  for 331 

warning  to 207 

writers  for  the  press  297 

Your  only  hope 303 


'^^i^. 


